I don't know how to write poetry like I don't know how to kiss you.

Our lips touch, my heart races, but my hands don't know how closely I am able to hold on to you.

If I could write poems I'd tell you how holding you close feels like finding a life jacket when you're lost at sea.

I'd tell you how your smile is the safest place I have ever known. That I've decorated the walls of my heart with your memories so I have somewhere to call home.

But I can't.

When you're around my body becomes a garden.

Butterflies dance around wildly in my stomach, through a meadow of delusion.

Vines grow and twist around my heart, in the same way that they make old ruins beautiful.

My tongue is paradise.

A thousand blooms unfurling in your sunlight, a bed of velvet soft petals with the sweetest nectar you're only too happy to devour.

You gorge away on the sweetest fruits, th nectar, you take your cuttings for ornaments. And when youre done you leave.

Darkness follows in your wake, my eyes become waterfalls, washing any colour that remained until there is only grey.

I can't kiss you. Because I know that afterwards there is a storm without parallel. I know resting my hand on your skin is no longer a silent I love you. More like a moth flying to close to the flame.

And I can't write a poem, because when you leave me, there is nothing left...