You and I
we will capture the sun
in our hands and feel
the starlight on our backs
bare to the moon and
smooth against the earth.

You and I
we will go into the
darkness of life
with our hands held tightly
like the knitted trees in the
most dense forests on earth.

You and I
we will see to the world
aiding in its development
of compassion as a living
breathing mechanism
this is our choice.

This is my choice.
To allow this love to consume
my very being and to shut
out those voices from everywhere
telling me what to do
and how to do it.
who to love.
who to hate.

This is my choice.
Un-wavered by the sounds of
all the world around me.
Like a pillar, I stand in
conviction that this love
is mine to cherish
and adore
and nourish.

Conviction is my choice.
You and I.
my choice as well.

The noise is everywhere --
but here in my permanent mind
I choose for it all to be quiet
and for it to just be
You and I.

Wine lips pressed together
the moment I realized your humanity
Behind that air of pride and smirk
someone I had so desperately
Sought to separate from
Has now become the one human
I cannot ever be separate from.

I looked at you. You looked at me.
Your pools of copper beckoning
And begging me to just try for once
something that was so seemingly easy
such a danger to my precious heart
For which I had built a concrete fortress.

But all at once, when you pulled me in
Against my own car, and kissed me
Gentler than the breeze
kisses the river during the Texas summers, it all washed away.
My fortress defeated by the simple
Red stained lips of the suitor who
Eventually lead me by the hand through my darkest moments of sheer terror and
Brutal pits of depressive states I never touched.
I envy those who lived without my scars but I can’t see my life without you to tend to them. Caressing even my thorniest passages of self defeat and depreciation.

I also do not envy those who live lives without the unforgettable touch that you leave with me, fingerprints on my very soul. Gentle and pressed in with some kind of magic understanding of my very aura. Something even 6,000 miles could not leave me blank. Changed by you.

I look back to those moments.
Pulling me in. Your look of adoration.
The power you put behind me.
Lights off, lights on. Daylight or evening.
Colliding again and again, creating some
Kind of unique friction that fuels the very stars.

How you so easily unlocked me. Unhinged me. Undid all that was laced, blackened from years of abuse and things even I have never spoken of to you...but you have healed them with your complex, sustaining, passionate, Love.
I can’t love or live without you.
You fuel the fire that powers my entire being
My muse. Something deeper than even I understand. I won’t give up ever again.
For now, I know what life is like without you;

Bleak. Empty wine bottles. Bruises from nights I don’t want to remember. Sunshine depleted from my center. Cascading, blackened blood from a knife held too close. Ghosts and skeletons. Reaching. To take me to a hell I never want to live in again.

But I’m coming home.
And home is where the heart is.
You’ve kept it for a long time now.
Safe.
Away from the people and things that would truly shatter it.
Your arms. My safety.

if this life is not permanent
if nothing in this life is
real or worth much
why would i waste my time
chasing objects and mile markers
when in our lives
all that matter is how we feel
our emotion and our sensitivities
to each other and to ourselves
our own inner voices, (or are they really inside?)
screaming and singing to be heard.
ripping open our own hearts
and eyes to see what is really
under the masks of our own making.
why chase those masks that we wear
why not grip the feelings of love
and faithful compassion from the universe
or from our own inner gods and goddesses
why not reach out and grasp that
golden thread that we so desperately
search the world for
it's right there in front of our gaping
mouths.
waiting to be touched and embodied.
this is why we should chase our heart
for in this world
it is the only thing with sheer permanence.

wipe your makeup away
look at yourself in the mirror
what do you see behind
those circled eyes, black and
blue, colors of the sky
day and night -- you have
become the earth and you
embody all in it. you.
you have endured some
pain that not many people
have and yet you stand there
wiping away the mascara
wiping away the stain from
the act that punctured your
psyche and your flesh.
unwanted, unneeded, undeserved.
you decide your fate from here.
will you choose to let it mark you
or will you allow it to be wiped
off, taking the memory, the feeling
the death it caused inside you
and throw it into the abyss
of what will never be again
because you will come back
a thousand times stronger
than you ever were before.

i have a new face.
it's painted with
white and red.
it has an expression
of blank resilience.
i want you
to look me in the face
and tell me
you love me,
even if it's fake
because i don't *******
care about you
or anything or
anyone.
even though i really do.
all of them are welled into
the bottom of me,
rolled up and curled
into tiny knots
of blackened rope
wet and slimy from the
earth's digestion.
i want you to love me
i really do.
but i'll act like i don't
because that's all i can do
all i can hope for right now.
loneliness is here.

logical love
isn't my forte
and neither is
the concept of
loving lightly.
when i choose you
you are the one
thing i will think
of every second
of every day
and even when
i'm selfish and leave
you, the chosen
will never leave
my mind, for years
and years to come.
until finally,
i've loved myself again.
and then, right after
i find another chosen
soul to fill the desire
to completely love
and passionately
dedicate my feelings
this act of service
this act of dedication
comes with a price
for my own sanity
sometimes risks itself
and the fear that creeps
into my bones when
commitments arise
have kept me from
really and truly
loving another

but now, you,
i didn't choose
for you followed me
and pursued and made
me feel, for the
first time in my life,
truly wanted.
someone who
believed in me
and in everything
i stand for and
stand against.
and someone who
saw things in me
i couldn't see before
and who loyally
displayed their heart
on the flannel sleeve
of my favorite red shirt.

you, never have i felt
this wanted by another
human and such an incredible
force of care and love
towards me, even in my darkest
hours of pain and depression.
you pull me into you
through mind and body
and shield me, even from myself.

you know me,
better than i think i know myself.
and knowing what you do
you see what i cannot
and you give me a sense
of security, understanding,
and support that i've never had.

trust in me, my darling,
that this partnership
will set the world aflame
for the two of us
can only bring light into
this darkening world.

my leo
my sun
hard to get away from
your charm
your bright light
that shines directly
into the most intimate
crevices of my being
you know me
in ways others don't
the dark sides
the sides that no one has
touched, reached for,
or even questioned
my most closed secrets
and my most passionate
ideas and desires
you ask.
you've always asked
always trusted me
always glanced in my
direction with a look
that is so full of romantic
impassioned love

loyal leo, my loyal leo.
i raise my eyes to you
blushing, extremely red
your favorite shade
of my cheeks pressed
close to you as we sat
on that cold evening
when we first told
each other we loved one another.
i was so afraid.
so i ran away from your arms
instead of into them as i should have
and now, almost a year has passsed
and i realize that my love
for you has not changed
though my body is not there
next to yours every morning.

now i lay there wishing
i could reach over and touch
that body, entity, that i learned
so well over the months we
spent teaching one another
giving our own selves
over to one another.
for you, you know that our  
paths were meant to cross
again and again and again
because we indeed
are meant to be together.

this time, i'm not running
except home to you.