When I was younger,
a moment of existential
panic would have my
buttons coming undone
for boys who didn't care why
but sure loved how.

I'm more beautiful now,
less given to panic, and I
undress for you like this:
one story at a time –  a
metaphoric bump and grind.
I shimmy out of all my lies.

If this poem is like our love
(and the sky as
clear)

then it will rise like a rocket
and stop short,
here.

It's been a week; I know you said
sometimes it may be hard to write.
I understand, I really do –
I've been very busy, too,
learning how to sleep at night
and falling out of love with you.

This is a lonely poem,
a half an hour before dawn poem,
a poem like an empty kitchen –
a godforsaken (god, I'm shaking)
feeling like I just want to go home
poem. (and I am home)

I think of something I'd like to tell you
in my bedtime voice, from a shared pillow
into your warm ear, but can't – so

I hide our secrets inside verses and
I author universes where, despite love's
disappointments, you're still here.

I would bring you lunch just to watch you walk
across the field; you reminded me, then,
of a young Fidel Castro. I had just
read his prison letters, and was feeling like
maybe we didn't set enough things on fire.

At night, we played games; I would call you
Comandante and undress you, trying
not to smile when I spoke of the uprising,
but I always did. Some nights, my mouth on
your skin and all of those fires not lit

and all of those things  left standing
made the world seem too big and my torch seem
too small; I could never be brave enough.
On those nights, you kept my heart in my chest
with your grenade-throwing arm, tenderly.