I used to have a thesaurus in place of my heart,
fifty-thousand words to say how I hoped
I would someday feel.
In place of love, I had a fountain pen with a bent nib.
Instead of kisses, I had wirebound sketchbooks.
While other girls, giggling, wrapped
   phone cords around their fingers,
I wrapped sestinas in proper syllabics around enjambements.
        tiny crushes were
        replaced by Haiku gently
        wafting on the page
Love sick sighs were ignored in an echoing of
   alliteration and onomatopoeia,
and now I look at you and I rack my heart,
but I can't come up with the right . . . .