I'd rather
chill in some place
and burn an L
with you,
than let my tongue
get live
in any other
larynx
that never knew your name,
I'd rather
read a bad book
in your name
than a good book
in someone else's,
I know
that I was looking
at a landform
and not a landmass,
a being
more
than a thing,
what I want to know,
is why we leave each other alone
when no one
is an island
and there are no boatless
harbors?

I'd rather capture
your laughs
as I cup my ears,
and your tears
in the stern
of my fears.

I'd rather be
a relic
and possibly
a fuel
rather than
a nautilus
with nothing in its shell
to give.

I've taken the boat out
and the oars
trip up on grass
as I paddle through the bay of the asylum
across lime oceans
contracting scurvy
from too much fertilizer
and not enough fruit.