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'cause this is how he loves me

i.
when
emptiness hangs like a moon in my mouth-
he kisses the stain of night
from my palms;
and turns it
into
a
pulse.

ii.
he reminds me that our love-
is the constant tag of
"drowning sun and flowering moon"
between opposite horizons;
and that the sky will always be
our stage.

iii.
his heartbeat is the closest thing
to what the universe sounds like;
and he blinks and says instead:
"my love, my one and only,
you always will be
my beautiful infinity"

iv.
when i am nothing but
the color of mirrors-
or a broken chaser
of the light-
he finds a way to worship
even the coldest silhouettes of myself
like one would of art.

v.
i am a mural of a target-
i am constantly flirting with death-
yet he has been feasted on by bullets
because he refuses to let
shadows make a meal
of my soul.

vi.
he has defied every walking god
in his path to prove that nothing,
and i mean no existing thing-
can place a dent in our love.

vii.
the thing about the sun is that
he loves nothing more
than when i paint his bedroom ceiling
with our future.

viii.
And when death stands
on the tip of my tongue-
and the nightmares cup my cheek
in the flesh of my own kingdom (the night)
...
he holds me close;
until all the wars within my bones
turn to honey.