I have a favor I must ask
of you, and only you:
I need your body back,
your flesh, your warmth.
Your arms wrapped around me,
holding me tight, pulling me in-
silently speaking the words
"you're mine,
I'm your's. We are safe."
because baby, I have
a confession to make
I wrote poems in your
skin that you don't know
I left there.
You see my dear,
I tucked my quiet rhymes
behind your ears for
times I knew you'd
need to hear my words
so soft and sweet,
My words: I love you
My words: I am here
My words: I am not going anywhere.
(Little did I know you would.)
•••
I hid similies and metaphors
in the nooks and crooks
of your elbows and knees
because poetry must be just as
good an oil as any for a
twenty-eight year old tin man right?
**** I don't know
but that's where they fit,
where they were meant to go.
•••
The first time our bodies connected,
our forces colliding just like
The Milky Way and Andromeda
will in four billion years-
my universe aligning with yours
as we lay in the grass
you and I both whispered:
"This is wrong."
For the first time on
that summer night I wrote
my words secretly into your skin.
My words: "How can something
wrong feel so right?"
•••
Baby, I'm looking for home and
I know you're looking for a heart
so here's mine-
written in words on your flesh
that you don't know are there.
Here's mine-
to fill your dark cavern
because no heart should be dark,
no heart a cavern.
Here's mine-
my throbbing, beating mess of a heart
filled with everyone I've ever loved
and there you are on top.
•••
Then came the days
without "I love you."
On those days,
with my fingertips frostbitten
and trying to text,
I wrote my words on scraps
of paper, turned them into airplanes,
and aimed in your direction
hoping that maybe,
just maybe,
their tips would pierce your skin
injecting the warmth I once received.
•••
To the man I used to love,
You can keep your body
and all the words I wrote in
places I wanted you to look
and hoped you wouldn't miss.