It’s almost silly, really
this red-ribboned date on the calendar,
as if love needed a fence,
a gate swung open once a year
to let the wild things run.
We love our people daily
in coffee poured, in sleepy kisses,
in the quiet hum of shared rooms and Stolen moments
yet still I ache for this one marked day,
this bright-feathered bird called Valentine, cherub's and hearts arrows
We wake.
We rise.
We dress in small ceremonies.
Sometimes something waits beside the bed, the excitement
a note, a rose, a whisper of chocolate on the tongue.
Sometimes it waits before waking,
a ravenous warmth under the sheets,
breath against my shoulder,
hands learning the landscape of morning.
In my case, lovers because I believe in being greedy and giving to the needy lolz
Who will pounce, who will bounce,
who will claim the first kiss of daylight
that is yet to be seen.
I don’t want a braying donkey love
or honey-sticky comfort without spark.
Give me my Tiga tiger heat, my Piglet tenderness,
give me clever rabbits with secret smiles and misintentions
growling lushy blushy with bright eyes
and mischief stitched into their lace and hunger on their face .
The day hums red.
Scarlet dresses in shop windows,
men smoothing collars,
women glossing lips like ripe cherries.
Even the wind seems warmer,
as if February borrowed chocolate croissant breath from summer bakery.
But my favorite moment,
always
is the knock at the door.
“there’s a delivery for you.”
And there they are, sometime more sometimes less
roses like a crimson storm cloud
spilling over my arms.
Petals soft as whispered promises.
I walk through the house slowly,
a queen in a silk robe,
hips swaying to a private rhythm,
letting the living gesture linger.
I wish Valentine was a day where relationships were allowed to stay,
I wish we three could wake tangled together, like a unsorted rubrics cube,
sunlight painting our shoulders gold.
How one may stay the night
and one may not, but return early
if only they knew the delicious chaos
we can conjure in a weekend
Perhaps we’ll steal away to the lake again, soft simmering light across silver waters , the row boat bobbing
bare feet on cold wood docks,
wine on our lips, oh that sweet rose
stories traded like secrets in the dark, gestures of love traded in the day
and beneath the quilt, it's who framed Roger rabbit or some corky discussion
hands finding hands,
heat rising like mist from water at dawn.
the chocolate melting slow.
Valentine’s , when too much isn't too much
holy and hungry and laughing
not crude, but blazing,
like a match struck in winter.
It’s ******* amazing.
This wanting.
This giving.
This sweet collision of skin and soul.
And though love needs no calendar,
I am grateful for a day
that dares us to be louder,
redder,
hungrier
and I wish,
with petals scattered on the floor
and three shadows braided into one,
that we had so much more of it.