The pores on your face
are enflamed, like a valuable red ruby:
I realize for the first time that I could shatter you
put my sadness in your heart
stuffed up like fortune cookies, misfortune.

When you cry,
I realize for the second time that love is not just
a chemical like dopamine, serotonin.

I do not love you just so I can fall asleep
at night but I only play with
puzzles when I realize you are missing from me:
that is the difference
between science and feeling, your beauty.

I taste the placebo affect
when you smile like quartz in the rough,
I realize for the first time that I want you to hang
from my neck on a diamond cut chain
and discover, and know that I can be happy.