if our fate lines do one day cross –
just a moment in anachronism –
i’ll feel whole in loving loss.

it was nothing short of rapturous –
you sound like the summer i met you,
and home, all at once.

i.
we're tangled in sheets, and i'm moving from your lips,
to your cheek – i feel your fingertips trace,
the outline of my face, and we're breathless;
you called my mouth the horizon.

ii.
the only time i really feel loved,
is when i'm on your tongue,
    when you hold me down,
    when you mark me up;
come on, look at me, baby,
eyes filled with lust.

iii.
i can't keep away from your touch;
fill me up in ways i didn't know i was empty and call it love,
because i just wanna feel whole again.

pack me up a picnic basket,
leave my skin and soul unscathed.
feed you apples and honey –
sticky and sweet –
fickle, and my thoughts incomplete:
put your fingers on my neck,
lick the corners of my smile,
brush the blush from my cheek;
i call you mine,
you call me yours.

i often think,
of empty grocery store aisles,
dusk in summer,
the home i grew up in,
tea leaves,
and sugar,
and cigarettes,
and you –
forever an anomaly,
a notion at best.

shall i search for home amid foaming waves,
and on the shore, whereon i sit to weep?
kisses ‘pon sailors’ cracked lips twixt their graves –            
porcelain dreams, aye, i’ll sing thee to sleep.

and i, warm wishes and an unknown name,
n’er-ceasing sighs ‘mongst mine own doleful face –
soft! thou would’st think i, ethereal dame,
would amount to more than moth-eaten lace.

pray romance blooms ‘tween chapters one and two;
for us each morrow t’will be but a dream.
even but now, i shall bid you adieu –
i go to seek life more than this doth seem.

ere wish i upon stars in evening sky;
perchance i’ll send for thee, midst last goodbye.

fog dense and still dripping,
silver buck moon,
and my cutting tongue,
spewing venom –

but it has no bite anymore.

falling out, into an empty bed,
i played the part of a devoted transient –
in all the artifacts,
“i was here.”

said it used to break his heart to see me cry,
but now he’s used to it.

“must be hard to end it when she’s so pretty.”

and the flower lady said,
"she's a spring."

with golden notes in my skin –
my overturned arm in her palm;

she said pastels were my thing.

it takes me two times longer to fall asleep,
when you’re not on the phone,
                              on my pillow,
                              next to me;
i count the seconds.

i.
and in that deafening silence,
i've never wished more to be heard,
wracked with endless demurs of regret and remorse –
impure, impure, impure.

ii.
but it's my choice, isn't it?
to bear the knot of pearls come undone,
to feel it shift from skin to soul,
to speak of loving, and then let go.
(i see this now as a luxury i could not afford.)

iii.
if i don't rise come blooming spring,
ring the church bells for those left unheard,
wash the red from the bed sheets,
please unhinge my strife from the earth;

and know this:

iv.
a man is no longer a man,
after his unbidden pillage,
has left an innocent soul shaken;
unholy and impure.

silk sheets,
you taste like lavender
                         milk  
                         tea;
sunrise licks at your cheek –
like it’s your namesake,
you’re drenched in laurel and leaves.

when you first told me you loved me,
the words dripped from the air,
and onto my skin bare –
i wanted to hear you say it again;
there is you or no one else.