almost-lover, what i wouldn't give
to once more, devotedly thumb over
the golden chains laid in rivulets
over the proud crest of your sternum
as if i were some man of faith, raptly
counting off beads on a rosary:
your body was my cathedral, my house of worship
and now i elegize the lifetime of us

my sweet sweet summer child, my beautiful boy,
i might've laughed when you spoke to me of
children and 401(k)'s and home-cooked meals,
of a century home and a little coffeeshop of our own
but in our dreams began responsibilities, cariño;

i was prepared to climb the massif of my self-doubt
ford the raging rivers my stream of consciousness feeds
embrace the sharpness of you with outstretched arms
because you were everything i am not, and i said
"te quiero" despite and because of it

i didn't want to abstain from you, sip you in moderation
because, ****, i came to live for the fire you lit in my chest:
meteoric, blooming, it lived fast and died young, i was as a
candle burning at both ends but i could bask in the heat
and make believe it was enough to keep you around

almost-lover, my marble-hewn myth, how i wish
you were less frugal with your words of affirmation:
would that you gifted me them as readily as bouquets of
yellow carnations or fistfuls of overexposed polaroids,
i would treasure them all the same

almost-lover, it's the stroke of midnight and i'm still
wearing my 5 o' clock shadow like melpomene's mask
******* in the pit of my stomach and any out-of-turn words
revering the gym calluses growing in from clenching
knurled steel bars, not letting myself grieve the
erasure of all that makes me soft despite knowing
there is a death in every change

we were a rhapsody sweet and ephemeral as
honeysuckle nectar on hot and wet tongues,
peppermint gum still fresh on your breath
and the lavendered spice of your cologne
morphing animalic between us: at once,
inches and worlds apart as we kissed
by the creek in the burgeoning dark

almost-lover, when i asked of you, "what are we?",
painfully with too much articulation, and i
heard the reply in your silence: "out of time,"
i wondered if limerence could be clemency

i could be your handicraft, the wind in your sails
your big spoon and the keeper of your emotions
if you could, for a moment, stop flitting your eyes
and meet my gaze, just once

if ever you loved me *******,
then don't walk away:
won't you never let me go?