My heart can’t hold
True
To anything

It has been rumored that if you hold someone long enough
Their heartbeat will match yours

If this were the case you would have seen me for who I am by now

Hearts are ugly blood pumping engines
Keeping us alive

I’d like to say you keep me alive
But you don’t

And if this works out and I lose you some day

You won’t

I mean
I am tired of the love poems
About the longing
And the passion
And the
If I had you’s

Love happens in stages

That is stage one

And you are stage two
After we drop the five acre metaphors
All forming like words from the mouth of a man
Who is still learning how to swoon something honest
Still learning what it means to make things right
Still listening for the flaws in his passionate stutter

I have counted them all
Made notes on my own
So let me learn yours
So I can write about
The years of learning

The study of your mistakes
I will write them beautiful
Even if they’re really bad
Even if they make you really mad

Woman
I know I am broken
If I can’t change me
Then you can’t change me
I will write about your stinky feet if I want to

Maybe they’ll smell like the miles you
Walk on sunny days
Because you’re trying to lose weight
Maybe they’ll smell like losing weight
And therefore
At least for you
It will be beautiful

I will always think you are beautiful

And stage three is when you finally leave me for good
Even if we have been broken up for years by now
You leaving
Is you leaving
Is your heart finally failing at doing what hearts really do
Because if me holding you causes mine to beat like yours
Then I’d be leaving too

Here is the truth
I have been told
The heart is deceitful above all things
This is the truth

And I or you will be left
To pick up the pieces
Still alive
Still breathing
Still bathing in the stages of love

But I am still stuck in stage one

And you beautiful future deathbed lover
Are stage two