i will give you things.

at first, i will give you honey suckles bound in the locks of auburn hair,
a gentle smile, a refreshing breeze. i will give you monuments dedicated to a single glance, and you will take all of these things with pleasure.

i will give you warm rain, and deep woods, and all the clichés we hear every day but we still love to talk about because we love them, i will give you love like them, like stars showing the dawn their shy bodies, like waves proclaiming all of these things i will give you.

i will give you all forms of love.

i will give you the best possible physical love, i will give you the most elegant touches and the most jarringly inappropriate whispers. yes, i will give you *******.

i will give you lessons in art, lessons in cooking, lessons in life. i will give you honesty, and truth, and commitment, and i will give you spellbound nights where all we do is talk about how the philosophers got it all wrong, that Plato was an idiot for saying we could only find death in love, look at us; look at this. i will give you the ability to teach me, i will give you the crescendo of my youth.

i will give you the crescendo of our relationship.
and then, one day, i will give you a little less. i will still give. i will still give you speeches about world events, i will give you the coffee i make in the morning, i will give you touches that aren't as passionate but they are touches nonetheless.
i will give you midnight runs to the store, i will give you medicine for when you are sick and i will give you the ability to nurse me as well.

i will give and i will give and i will give every day, each day & it will be a little less, until one day, i will give you nothing.

i will give you a profound silence, i will give you the absolute void. i will give you a pitch black abyss, nothing at all, and just when you reach the pit of despair, just when you think you've hit the bottom, the bottom will fall out and i will give you less than nothing.

i will give you screams instead of silence. i will give you hands peeled to the bone and bleeding because they have given and given and given and there's nothing less but less. i will give you a broken home, a broken heart, i will give you memories that will anchor to the bottom of your sea & know you will never be able to get rid of them because they are the skeleton of a ship wreck & did you know, in the Mediterranean there are still preserved shipwrecks in the murky depths of that ocean from Grecian times? i will give you these little reminders of mortality.

i will give you regret that sits on an empty shelf collecting dust particles. i will give you a taste for whiskey because it allows you to languish. i will give you the worst kind of wounds, the kind that time does not give a **** about, the kind that stars even pray over. i will give you a little less faith, i will diminish your ability to trust your instincts. i will give  you complete and utter devastation, i will give you repeated cliches on their backs: hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis. i will crack your collar bone, i will crack your skull. i will leave you as an abandoned house, worn down and empty.

i will give you everything, all of these things, and more; if i give you my hands right now.

to whoever is now holding his hand, with your fingers intertwined with his, maybe fitting together perfectly
like puzzle pieces, maybe you were the missing piece, so stay where you belong.
to whoever is now lost in his eyes, so far gone, so far away, in a place bigger than the sky, don't blink because you don't want to miss the twinkling stars
to whoever is now kissing his lips, creating sparks and feeling high, you are tasting something far sweeter than sugar, don't ever pull away don't ever remove your lips from his, you'll be left with a bitterness and crave the flavor of his tongue
to whoever is now making him laugh, you are hearing the music of an angel, stay speechless don't say a word, just soak in the sound of happiness and continue to make him smile
to whoever is now his world,
please,
just never stop spinning, keep him dizzy, and never let him go.

i'm trying to tell my body that it's just a body and that you are just a body and that i can let go and that i can tell you to leave. and i told you that i don't know how to do much, i don't know how to stay and i also don't know how to leave and i also don't know what to do when i get the feeling that you're leaving and i know i'm not making much sense but you need to leave because i don't know how. i also don't know how to tell you that i'm not the type of rain that's meant to kiss in, i'm the type of rain that you're supposed to run inside to avoid. i told you i love you and that my lungs hurt from trying to not hyperventilate and this hurts me more than it could hurt anybody else but when i'm with you, i try to stop my hands from shaking and i try not to make eye contact with you and i can't spit out most of what i want to tell you and that's really sad because i have so many stories to tell and so many questions to ask and i can't tell you why this happens but i'm going with i love you too much. and you just stood there. i don't know if it was because you wanted me to say more or to shut up or because you never heard me say that much in such a short time period but you just stood there. and when you started walking towards me i knew you probably blocked out my voice by then and i realized you're the reason for gravity. at least my gravity. you're the thing keeping me anchored to the ground. i tried my hardest to push you away but every time i pushed too hard my knuckles started bleeding apologies that i know you don't like hearing and now you're not here but you're not gone and i miss you.

If I could be beside you in this moment
I'd gather all the stars suspended over California
and shove them in a bottle
that they would cast a gentle glow
to bathe our bodies as we lie
asleep, arms entangled with ourselves
blissful lips within each other's reach
hearts beating synchronized, harmonizing,
adding to the euphony of euphoria,
the anthem of togetherness.

Glass is cheaper than the stone skin
tattooed on their foreheads. The palace, a splendid fantasy,
half built when the idea will be abandoned.

Freedom is a powerful nuisance! Their only
sin is looking at the world through rose-colored
glasses, make people feel at ease despite distress and disease.

The right wing redneck reactionary republicans continue
religious slaughtering. This nightmare scenario should
be nixed, said with a sneer, I hope they’re wearing warm socks.

Still, I couldn’t crack the code. Changed envy to admiration
to cultivate mystery rare as it is rewarding. The weird thing
is the high-end whiskey collecting dust on the on the shelves.

Nothing short of astonishing, like the space farers gazing back
at the home planet. Distant. They fascinate people.
Animate the inanimate environment. Isolation above.

Looking back I am ashamed of the mess we are leaving
our children and grandchildren. How to allocate these limited
resources? The key is to engage. No easy fixes.