I like your skin, the rough parts and the soft parts. The moles, bumps and other miscellaneous textures omitted to living on your arms like aliens. I like your back and how different it is, thin and lean with no fat, sometimes I can feel your bones under my fingers, and I’m afraid that during moments of various passions I will peel away what’s left.
I like your legs and how pale they are, how you sweat and recoil from my touch when you’ve napped and soaked my blankets.  I like the way you fumble for your glasses and fix your hair when it’s not even messy, the way your stomach heaves when you need to cough but won’t.  Just cough.
I like the way your earlobes connect and how sparse your beard is, how you threaten to shave it as if my compliments burn.  All my compliments burn you, in some shape or form.  But I give them out freely because they are true, and I want them to live in your heart forever.  In some cases you will not believe a bit of what I say, and I appreciate this as well.  However, I would like to know why, and how and when you came to these conclusions and why you settle there.    
I enjoy hearing you play guitar, when it’s not Zee Avi and you’re not gushing about how you saw her in concert.  I like that I am jealous of you, and you are never jealous of me. A trait that could pass over, but won’t. I like your capacity for apologies, sorry before, sorry after.  You are most sorry for everything that you do, and I am the one that put you there.   Should you ever become entirely mad at me some day, I shouldn’t be able to retaliate because you will have had good reason to be so.
When you speak, I like your voice. Deep and solid as if something inside you churns warmly.  A heavy bellied mammal, a trumpet of some sort. I can hear its footsteps when my head is on your chest, beneath your arm, under the blankets.  I like the gestures you used to describe things, and the high pitched sounds you make when I tickle you.  
I like the way you hide behind your arms when you’re naked, your knees, like magnets stuck together and your lips pulled thin in shame. As if I don’t like your body, you shield yourself.  But your defenses are weak and I love the parts you dare not to show. The red on your cheeks, a permanent stain, like your teeth kaleidoscoped white and the scars registered on your stomach.

I like the way you don’t let me love you, because I do.

You're an old receipt
from teavana that I
keep in a Legend of
Zelda Lunchbox on
the top shelf in my
closet, faded and
barely visible, you
can still see the date
and the date is what
stills me.