I know love not as an arm around a waist,
nor fingers teasing hair and running down a neck--

but as a temporary tattoo,
and the fleeting taste of Zebra Fruit Stripe Gum.

And just like Da Vinci never slept,
but took several naps a day--
So do I fall in love daily,
but tenfold!

The deep yearning that wells within my soul
and sits as the lump lodged within my aching throat,
I stumble through the day tripping over my enamoredness
towards any kind soul who dares to look my way,
or speak my name,
or touch my hand--

and I want to set up a kissing booth
in the middle of a shopping center
or my college campus,

and solicit others to grant me a taste of their humanity
in the holiest of ways,
man or woman,
young or old,

to but press their lips against mine for a second
and I would become illuminated,
rejuvenated,

and I would leap from my weary mental confines
like a grasshopper springing out of tall grass,
and love would well up within me--

Not as a transient fix,
but an anchor in these uncharted waters,
a cool glass of milk to a parched throat in a late night hour,

outlasting any cheap ****** or content stomach,
and shying away the facade of complacency.

I would burst forth like a battering ram
through the prison cell doors I weep and wallow behind,
and I'd have a skip in my step
that would ferry me across every pond and great lake.

For these hands do not pray,
but they tremble, and they ache.

And these lips do as hands do,
as they rest upon a placid face
that looks in the mirror and reads
of the anguish seeping out of inflamed pores
and burrowing between the creases
alluding a furrowed brow,

and if but a kiss could render one free
from such odious palpations,
then I'll gladly set mine to the liberator,
whomever it may be--

And how many lips does it take
to get to the center of my frozen aching heart?

The world may never know.