my best songs were about you
full of pure honesty and hopeless desperation
they were written in minor keys
on lonesome days when I needed you most

I never could have known
Although I am so grateful
That the most painful
Significant and
Distasteful moments
In my life
Would become

Me

You offered me your body,
I offered in return:

A tuna fish sandwich,
A nice piece of carnelian,
Maybe a book or two about odd things
like death by electrocution or Leonardo da Vinci
or the history of the upright bass,
Endless records,
Enough jazz to paint the world blue,
My mouth forming the shapes of notes,
A breath from my own lungs,
The scarf which was lovingly knit for me
by my one remaining friend,
Lipstick, bright red and smooth,
Feathers from a hawk that I found by the road,
Dried pink roses from a corsage,
Two baby teeth in a container that once held film,
Hair shorn with a dull kitchen knife,
A collar of cracked burgundy leather,
Sachets smelling faintly of lavender,
A mirror which was cracked on my thirteenth birthday,
One lace glove.

Why did you leave?

I didn't get much sleep last night
I wish you could guess why,
I couldn't get my heart off you
I couldn't control my mind.

When I consider your smile and laugh
The
Butterflies don't fly away
For lack of a better term they stay,
And
Grow.

That honey you call your hair,
The way your face wrinkles while you laugh,
You are something else entirely
An entity unable to be enumerated,
Entrapped, encroached upon,
Earthly, eager, but unearthy,
Eloquent and effortless,
Elevated above others.

To put it lightly,
I favor you.
and Admire.