i don’t have something to remember you by.

i think these past few months
would have been easier if
i’d had a sweatshirt of yours
to curl up into, even after too many washes
had drowned your scent.

but i think you loved me
too much
to let me indulge myself
in your ghost.

someone told me once that i was an all or nothing type of girl.
and they meant it as a compliment, or rather an insult
draped and disguised to look like one.
but it's true, i know this.

and i have locked onto that phrase for years and years.
because i am so afraid to love someone wrong
that i love everyone too much, maybe.
or maybe not ever at all.

i can tell you what a crush feels like, list symptoms and
cross things off on a list one by exciting, miserable
one. but i cannot write on the excitement
of the brush of someone's fingers

or the bone-rattling nerves of an across-the-room glance.
i can't remember what rejection feels like and if
you asked me, i could not properly say
that i care about that anyway.

but i am familiar with this, the anxiety and this yearning.
to talk and laugh and say out loud what was said
to me and oh, however shall i respond?
that's what i'd say.

if i had a crush, anyway. but i am a girl who just...
does things all at once or not at all, and so
i find myself terribly frightened
to feel anything at all.

He loved her and she loved him
His kisses ****** out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she ******
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered  into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows  pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined  sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

curiosity tainted
music's coursing wild through my veins

prelude to making love on pages

your soul opens, dark pools that flood my heart,
warm, balanced, alive and carefully sweet
(yet not too sweet,
the risk of letting go has been conquered,
  and the freedom prevails),
our dance is symmetrical as we shape into each other.

your skin teaches me how to be smooth
as the distinction between your hair
and your face fades,
just as your body and mine intertwine
until your hips are all I know and
your lips are all I see with my eyes closed.

a comfortable lack of noise apart from
the pleasure of breathing. I remember
every detail of the pounding flesh, the sweat
carving rivers on your chest, the kiss from
my neck to the breast.

I've never known a closeness such as this,
your gentle gaze has gripped my heart,
some times I want to tear it out
so as not to get overwhelmed by the beauty.

your love is art, and your expression is priceless.

I often find it difficult to hold myself back,
our love is raw, but I'd rather my ****** not be.

In your hand there was a coffee cup
As I walked into the kitchen you looked up
For a second we locked eyes
And I saw something in you rise
We both glanced at the clock on the wall
It was 3:37 AM and time had slowed to a crawl
Unable to sleep through the night
An insomniacs delight
We sat together at the kitchen table
Trying to keep one another stable
Out side we heard a car race past
We tried to figure out why he was going so fast
Who he was, or where he was going
But alas there was no way of knowing
Then the birds were awake and singing their songs
And I think I heard you humming along
We broke down and opened a gallon of chocolate chip
As we ate you talked about your ideal trip
You said you wanted to go to France
That you just wanted to take a chance
To see the rolling countryside
But the opportunity is always denied
Through the window we see the sun start to rise
The weak light hurting our eyes
Your face was half soaked in the pale morning light
We decide to try and get more sleep "Tonight"

One day
When my hair is graying, face is creasing
My husband will be at work
His apathy slowly increasing
And making him a rude ****.
My kids will be at school being fed empty knowledge
Preparing for college
And the TV set will be blaring
I won't be caring
About the static noise filling the beige room,
The news guy speaking of terror and gloom
A blue glare will reflect on the brown stained couch
On which I will be sitting, with a woebegone and wistful slouch
And my brain will drift, slowly searching memory files
Going back for years and endless miles
And I will remember you,
The boy I once knew,
As the boy I never kissed
My eyes will mist
And maybe I'll cry
And give a shaky sigh
For so many reasons, and that lost kiss will merely be one