i have legs that go for miles
and a laugh that lights the room.
and i have two boys,
and two halves of my heart,
and they each have one of the halves
(and for this
i have turmoil
and guilt
and elation
in equal parts)

i used to think -
how disloyal,
and slovenly,
and unjust of you.

the great king loved you!

but i understand, now, what it's like,
to belong so totally with someone -
your arthur and
my sweetheart -
and to want someone so much that it makes your whole body hurt -
your lancelot and
my agony.

nine tenths of my heart is yours,
but the other part
is his through and through,
and it's going to be this way, always.

i may love you all i like but
i cannot escape him.

i am not a ******* afterthought
and you are not my only option
and i should not feel this way.
i should not be looking at him
and i should not want anyone but you
but that's not the way it is.

the way it is is that i feel like
a burden
and i shouldn't.
the way it is is that i should be able to tell you this
and work it out
and i can't.

the way it is is that i don't know what to do
and i don't know who to love
and i don't know who it is that loves me.

and i should.

i don't know how to love
two people -
i don't know how
to choose.

the fact is that right now i'm yours,
but i watched him playing today, feeling the music with every part of his soul,
and my heart has never beat that way before.

my breath has never been more taken.

i have a weakness, you see
for people who make beautiful things,
and i could feel the strikes of his drums in my blood -
i could feel it through the floor
straight into my body,
until i couldn't tell you where my heart stopped
and the drumbeats started.

my friends promised me that it's only a phase,
and that you are who i want, truly
because you are who i have
and they're probably right,
but right now there's a part of my heart
that is pumping my blood with drumbeats,
and right now there is a part of my heart
that isn't yours.

my luck comes in threes,
and i'll tell you why.

my head is full of trees and tales and stories
(that is my luckiness)
and i believe in luck and love and magic.
i trust that the world will keep turning
(and so it turns for me)
and my tongue trills three-note thrifts,
when it has nothing else to do.

i have three parents instead of two and
three brothers instead of none
i have no sisters and fingers meant for paper and pen -

i have three boys who love me but
i only love one of them back
(and isn't that
the luckiest of all?)

i have poems, songs and stories
i have paintings, sketches, doodles -
and my eyes burst three colors
tangled and swirling.

i am threes and throats and throbbings.
i am feelings and thoughts you can't quite put into words.
i am lucky,
and luck finds those who know it

it was bursting at the seams when you held me -
and i could hear the muted thump of your heart
through the fabric of your t-shirt.
when your fingers pulled through the growing-out shortness of my hair and
your lips at my forehead -
that was when i knew it.

and when you would whisper,
"i have a secret,"
and i would look up at your shining-eyed face,
and smile, and whisper back,
"what is it?"
and you would whisper,
"i think i've told you before, but
you're beautiful."
it was bursting at the seams when i kissed you,
and the way we couldn't breathe
and the kind of want we didn't know existed.

and falling asleep with my face tucked into your chest
and your fingers brushing my hair back
absently
from my face

and our breathing slowing

and our whispered wantings

that was when i knew it,
and soon i'll have to say it.

there is no air -
not inside my chest and
not in my breaths
and i feel tight everywhere
(like i could break
or explode)

something hotter than tears builds behind my eyes and
my anger has nowhere to go,
because it's at nothing.

and there is not enough room for all the sadness.

i cannot breathe and i cannot think and i can only
grasp for the threads that will
(i hope)
keep me together.