i do not write love letters often. i am not good at them.
my words are clumsy and ill-fitting. i live in superlatives,
exhaling exclamations, loving at high altitude, among the
cloud vapor and wind, where the sun burns so hard it
bathes everything in holy white. but it is not enough for you.
i drop the pen and pick it up and begin again. i stop and start                    
and stop and start and try to tell you. what you do.
how you live in my lungs and brain tissue and belly.
how you are flammable. how you Glow.

the things i don’t know how to say: they run wild in me.
they squirm. they tell me to tell you that i was alone
on the face of the moon until you dropped from the sky
and showed me something more. until you ran with me
down craters and up dunes. until i fell in love with you
while moon dust settled on our skin like glitter.
i asked you to bring me back with you, and you did.
your lunar flares quivered to life and we ascended,
watching that frozen american flag until it was beyond us.
we kissed on a backdrop of dark matter and i touched
your face in wonder. we kissed and the universe
bent before us. and to watch that happen.
to watch it happen brought a strange, warm pain
that split me in two.

two, as in our hands holding. holding, as in what you do
to my heart. heart, as in this brave drum-beating muscle.
muscle, as what it has taken for us to survive.
survive, as in what you teach me to do each time you breathe.
breathe, as in what i cannot do when i see you coming.
coming, as in breathless. breathless, as in my body.
body, as in rising. rising, as in love. love, as in everything.
everything, as in you.