I start to write into a
puddle of metaphors
meant to be a love poem
and as I write down
the word love
for the thousandth
of the thousandth time

I accidentally misspell it...

...with the letters
of your name...

and I know visually
that it looks wrong on paper
but when I hear it in my head
it sounds right
and now I can’t quite remember
any other way to spell it

and thats not really the worst of it
because I’m really just rewriting
the same poem over and over again
somehow hoping that rearranging
the letters and the words
will somehow align the stars in heaven
causing my heartbeat to sync with yours
and somehow you will just know how I feel
and I won’t have to stutter
and stammer and choke on the words

because every time
you’re are sitting across from me
or standing anywhere near me
or being anywhere out there
in the world breathing
while just being you
causes my mouth and my hands
and my body
and the whole world around me
to tremble
as I begin
to feel so dangerously close
to not feeling so alone

and alone is a thing
I have grown to be
incredibly comfortably with
alone is a safe heaven
of quite and peaceful solitude
where pain is a thing
easily stitched away
inside secret pockets
of regret
that nobody knows about

alone is something that has
become the best friend
my heart has ever known
a secret companion
no one can steal away from me
the person that knows everything
about me that is too embarrassing
or strange
or heartbreaking to talk about

it knows things that
I don’t even know about myself

I am sure that I am
about to be swallowed
by some armageddon level event
and be forgotten by history
because this isn’t the kind of story
that i get to be a part of
except for the character
that no one notices
so there is no need to remember
who I was
or how when I thought
I misspelled the word love
with the letters of your name
was the first
and only  time
I ever actually got it right