I keep thinking one day
I will be able to muster up the words
I love you
and say them
directly, to your real face


but until then
this photograph
will have to do
cause
in your presence
I stammer and stumble
over the simplest of phrases
leaving my feelings looking like
a drunken cad
walking down the street
with my words
staggering at my feet
unable to be put
one in front of the other
& finally me
ending with my heart
passed out at your doorstep
cause my sense of sobriety
always fails me
around you.