I HEARD the old, old men say,
"Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away."
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
"All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters."

You're the words of love
with every turn of the page
of my life, that burns
bright in the night,
and sets the day's scene
just right,
for the love you
bring, starts the story
to sing, and the melody
drifts through every chapter
like mists surrounding me,
and you continue the tune,
with every page
that I view,
from the beginning,
until the end,
and then I re-read
it all over again,
the book that you've
entitled, "I Love You"
-because the story is true:
"I love you, too!"

__
the book:
http://beautyineverything.com/5092820337

Now this must be the sweetest place
  From here to heaven's end;
The field is white and flowering lace,
  The birches leap and bend,

The hills, beneath the roving sun,
  From green to purple pass,
And little, trifling breezes run
  Their fingers through the grass.

So good it is, so gay it is,
  So calm it is, and pure.
A one whose eyes may look on this
  Must be the happier, sure.

But me--I see it flat and gray
  And blurred with misery,
Because a lad a mile away
  Has little need of me.

A lover asked his beloved,
Do you love yourself more
than you love me?



The beloved replied,
I have died to myself
and I live for you.



I’ve disappeared from myself
and my attributes.
I am present only for you.



I have forgotten all my learning,
but from knowing you
I have become a scholar.



I have lost all my strength,
but from your power
I am able.



If I love myself
I love you.
If I love you
I love myself.

I tiptoe hence from
crack to crack in the
asphalt of our parking lot
trying not to hit the yardlines like
we did in marching band
practice, carefully, steadily
with six steps to a stripe
six-to-five six-to-five
left right left

and I'm trying not to notice
that the trees, their leaves are
turning now to the colors of
the hairs upon my head

copper
and ash
blonde brownish
honey
and the sweetest of
auburn
on my left
right left

and I'm not doing a very good job
of not noticing these things
like how I pretend not to notice how
you smile when I'm not looking but
you are, you're smiling, you're
looking at me and perhaps catching
glimpse of the rainbow of follicles
emerging from my scalp

which is great and all, but still it
makes me nervous makes me jittery
pocketwatch in my ribcage
tickticktick

I scuff my foot across the yellow
paint of parking spaces and joke that
we would have pretty children
because that's always been a topic
that's one of those half-joking, half-not
topics that all
boy and girl friends have even if
they aren't boyfriends or girlfriends they're
just friends, it's still a tender subject
and today I'm feeling
brave except for when I
trip over a word and widen my
eyeballs in embarrassment
until they can see the very
tips of my eyelashes and I
feel very odd indeed
because I realize no one thinks of that
except of course for
six-to-five six-to-five

and I've mapped out my life in bottle caps
and those pepperminty things you
can only find at wedding receptions

and I ****** them in a jar until I stir
them into prophecy and they tell me
if you were another boy if you had a signet
for a seal and possibly a stallion or at
very least a cloak
or a practicality for inventions more useful
than those of divinities
but you aren't no you aren't

and in another life were you a
nine-to-five nine-to-five
and in another time you could've passed
and we could laugh our days away by
the fires and read Whitman to our
Siamese and drape ourselves with kaleidoscope
quilts in lavish armchairs and just
breathed

honey, honey for your toast

breathe, don't cry
crying is for
the weak

and in another life I could've smiled
without abandon I could've
let your fingers brush my jawline let
you read over my shoulder and occasionally
turn the pages for me and I
could've seen our future and let you tell
me I was beautiful and possibly loved you
...but I can't love you.
This is not another life.
this is mine I tiptoe fragilely
from crack to crack and breath to
breath to keep myself from falling off
the edge and so I murmur quietly in my brain

ash blonde brown auburn burgundy and
six-to-five
yes, six-to-five
and let me close my eyes to blink

you tell me
you're not foolish enough to tell me
what you really think
and you laugh and I tell you I'm stopping this
train
of thought before it derails itself and causes those
catastrophes where thousands die
of head-on collisions and
butterfly feelings
and stricken-through unfinished

like I'm in a game of hide
and seek but you're pretending
not to know where I am hiding
so I can be the last one
left
right left

so I halt myself at six-to-five
and let you kiss me anyway

you don't know that in those
few choice words
you've given myself away

Did you know that since I met you I haven’t finished a single cup of coffee,

or had a dream that I could remember

or gone to bed the same day that I got up?

I’m not complaining mind you.

I just find it intriguing the little things you have changed in my life without even realising it,

without any effort.

My life used to be mostly empty, as in devoid of things, vacuous perhaps, if that means like a vacuum. I mean there was lots of space in it that wasn’t filled with anything in particular.

But you have managed to fill all of that nothingness up.

The times when I used to sit here and daydream about nothing, suddenly there you are.

When I close my eyes before going to sleep and used to spend on average seven minutes thinking of nothing (and that a scientific fact not one I made up) I now spend (on average) seven minutes thinking about you.

In that fraction of a second when breathing in turns to breathing out, there you are.

In that fraction of a second when I blink, its you I see.

Because its you I yearn for. Because its you I want to have and hold and kiss and caress and so much more that I dare not write, even in a poem.

But how?

How did you do this?

How did you invade my very psyche, my soul, my spirit so completely so effortlessly and with such subtlety that I never even noticed. Until I noticed. And its not like I noticed you were here and watched as you spread to there but you were suddenly everywhere.

Places no one else had ever been before.

Ever.

Places that people I had known for much longer and much more intimately had never been able to reach.

And yet there you are.

Sitting on a swing.

Waiting.

I just wish I knew what for.