Dictionaries are wonderful
Until you’re flipping through them,
Unable to find a word
That describes what you feel for her
This isn’t a love poem,
This isn’t an I-need-you poem
This is the cracks in your heels
From miles you’ve run,
Looking looking looking
For the dichotomy between terror and affection.

You keep thinking about hearts and chests
And mountains tripping on their own tears.
There are fences between imagination
And truth bottled lies.
You are a locution unidentified,
Cumulonimbus clouds with an electric stutter
Maybe there are drums in your bones
And she refuses to acknowledge them.

You keep bumping your head on the stratosphere
And breathing in ice,
But god, you can see so much.
She is concerned and calls you down
Says you flirt too much with danger.
You are unfaithful to her rooted feet,
That reaching so high means
You are likely to drift away.

You have novels and italics,
Strike-through lines of things you keep meaning to say,
Things you were hoping he would hear,
You are a storming cadence
And she keeps asking you to quiet.
You are a motif of wild things
Of dark corners
And edges jagged and strong.
Why can’t she see that up here in this atmosphere,
Is where you’ll always belong?