You crawled from out of my heart to my head.
From where I wanted to keep you instead.
I should have known once you entered my bed,
Dreams I have of you would need to be fed.

My heart would hold you but then you burst out,
Reminding me what mem’ries are about.
I was a fool to have had any doubt,
That the seed you planted in me would sprout.

My love was too much for my heart to bear,
I could not ignore it and keep it there.
Since you came around it hasn’t been fair.
My stale lungs need to breathe love in the air.

Between my heart and mind you shall dwell,
And when you’re near me then all will be well.
While our story has still chapters to tell,
Without you my heart’s just an empty shell.

The words have numbered ten thousand,
Deep secrets poured in every line,
Each thick with meaning, prose and rhyme.
Tell me, Muse, did you understand?

My silent voice pens the imperfect word,
My feelings disguised in my allusions,
This meager poet writes to illusions.
Tell me, Muse, whether my message was heard?

My shame permits only poems disguised,
My heart seeks safety by speaking in code,
Fear of rejection if true feeling showed.
Tell me, Muse, was love for you realized?

So many poems, each one has been true,
The literal is too scary to write,
I express love with clarity of night.
Tell me, Muse, did you know ‘twas about you?

I discovered you somewhere in the void
Between hope and glory, where words collide
With the need for story,
In that void where restless despair resides,
Where you meet the broken hearts to avoid.

I discovered you at the end of strength
Between fear and surprise, where all hopes fade
Ere fate can realize,
The mistakes that my hopelessness has made,
With expectations abandoned at length.

I discovered you in a world beyond,
Between here and never, where fortune lies
Promising forever,
In hushed awe I could not believe my eyes,
I ardently prayed to have YOU respond.

My courtship is like autumn chill,
An omen to the nervous trees,
Who hold their warmth by staying still,
Before the comfort of green flees.

The steady chill has no effect,
The leaves resist their urge to fall,
The branches hold ever *****,
Resisting the whistling winds call.

With the first frost there is a change,
The tree becomes vulnerable,
The nakedness of its trunk is strange,
But change is inevitable.

My poetry has worn away,
The leaves you wore for protection,
That frost came when you heard me say,
Magic words of my affection.

Your seduction has been unfair,
Though you could not help it, my dear.
My heart melts with the thoughts you share
And aloe smoothness of your hair.

Executed so ruthlessly,
You constantly seducing me,
With love given innocently,
You did it all so carelessly.

I’m smitten and I can’t let go,
Seduced by all the things you know,
You made my desire overflow,
Just by affection that you show.

I’m a slave to your seduction,
Mastermind of will’s abduction,
From our very introduction,
I was lost to your seduction.

The intensity with which we shatter,
Those what’s-left-of-us shards that cut you deep,
Brokenness and jagged edges matter,
When prices paid with pieces feels too steep.

Only two things cause our own destruction—
We’re broken from without or from within.
The damage goes beyond reconstruction,
We can’t build what we built before again.

Cracked into piles of debris on the floor,
The remnants of escaped emotion’s cage,
Whose seething burn couldn’t take it anymore,
Disposing of it disrespects its rage.

We’re broken so that something is released,
Those shards remind us what we have to do.
To put them back is just what matters least,
But don’t cut yourself making something new.

The world presents too few opportunities
To say “I love you,”
Perhaps because the feeling arises constantly,
And I am not near you
As often as I would need to be
Each time the spirit moves me.

I can think “I love you” each time I see you
Whether real or dreamt,
But what good is this perpetual thought if
You don’t know it
Then, in that instant
Each time the spirit moves me?

Your existence surpasses all time and space.
To say “I love you”
Feels smaller than the grandeur of those moments,
Those fleeting moments
You occupy in me
Each time the spirit moves me.