when you and i dance it is electric shock
and you are water and i am ice.
you conduct and share, spread like
wildfire heat and burn and
so don’t think i am nervous when you touch me
it is me
not you, never you
it is me who is too old and too frozen
to allow the free current to rumble through my skin.
it is a surprise,
a present,
when you let the warmth flash into my bones
but please remember that it is hard for me to hold
this gift
without dropping it.
humans have their half-hearts and
yours are so full
it’s been so long to remember heat
that sometimes i let the ice taste like
metal, like wood
like stolen promises and betrayed kisses
and then when you touch me
it is a surprise present
but one that i will take all too gladly
because i am selfish
and you have so much to give.
you are your mother and your father
and you are your own traveler
so let me come into your home
and make a mess of things
with my poor conductor heart.
i may never tell you i love you
but just know that it is not words that fail me
you would know i was lying if i said
i was anything other than a storyteller,
a wordsmith, a forger of weapons from syllables
and tongue against teeth and vocal chords,
but it is the surprise of electricity
that keeps my mouth fumbling.
let me marry you in forever ago
and now
because you are a surprise, a present,
and i have come to need you
in a way that i haven’t needed
and i cannot keep you in the box
of people i love
because they always come out broken
and i demand your circuitry, your
flow over me.
you must never break
again
because you torture yourself with
your own shock, your own pulse
and i cannot choose your fate;
that is yours to do with what you will,
but i can choose how to feel.
so maybe when the day comes
and the towers sing and i cry
i will cry not from the sadness of your leaving
but cry at the happiness of your staying
and the knowing that you and i
are the choosing ones
that have chosen electric-shock-pain
in the logic of you and i in union.