It's the kinda love where you're being swallowed whole.
You want to melt into their bones.
You walk them to the door,
tip-toe across the floor,
12:04.
You don't think you've ever felt like this before,
center of the sun, molten core, honey drizzled on toast.
Wash them from your hair,
check under your nails,
go to bed,
their face imprinted on your eyelids.

The part of my brain that absorbs every person I listen to  
(I stash your body in the microwave)
The hour of the night that I finally breathe
(Birds chirp the tune of your taped double homicide confession)
The perfect silence after a car crash
(Father smashes the last of your family portraits)
A lost dog with more fleas than teeth
(The birch in your grandmother's backyard calls you back to its roots)

I dig up the contents of your soul:
Scissor Sisters songs sung out of tune
3 stray hairs at a crime scene
An urn gathering dust on a sidewalk
Elvis Presley's shoes, worn down soles
An unflattering camouflage hat
The cries of the elderly, alone and alone again
Your mother, trying to define love
The oldest oak in Boston
The carcass of a deer, shot to the left of her heart

At last you have departed and gone to the Unseen.
What marvelous route did you take from this world?

Beating your wings and feathers,
you broke free from this cage.
Rising up to the sky
you attained the world of the soul.
You were a prized falcon trapped by an Old Woman.
Then you heard the drummer's call
and flew beyond space and time.

As a lovesick nightingale, you flew among the owls.
Then came the scent of the rosegarden
and you flew off to meet the Rose.

The wine of this fleeting world
caused your head to ache.
Finally you joined the tavern of Eternity.
Like an arrow, you sped from the bow
and went straight for the bull's eye of bliss.

This phantom world gave you false signs
But you turned from the illusion
and journeyed to the land of truth.

You are now the Sun -
what need have you for a crown?
You have vanished from this world -
what need have you to tie your robe?

I've heard that you can barely see your soul.
But why look at all? -
yours is now the Soul of Souls!

O heart, what a wonderful bird you are.
Seeking divine heights,
Flapping your wings,
you smashed the pointed spears of your enemy.

The flowers flee from Autumn, but not you -
You are the fearless rose
that grows amidst the freezing wind.

Pouring down like the rain of heaven
you fell upon the rooftop of this world.
Then you ran in every direction
and escaped through the drain spout . . .

Now the words are over
and the pain they bring is gone.
Now you have gone to rest
in the arms of the Beloved.

I’m drenched
in the flood
which has yet to come

I’m *******
in the prison
which has yet to exist



Not having played
the game of chess
I’m already the checkmate



Not having tasted
a single cup of your wine
I’m already drunk



Not having entered
the battlefield

I’m already wounded and slain



I no longer
know the difference
between image and reality



Like the shadow
I am

And

I am not

Both light and shadow
are the dance of Love.

Love has no cause;
it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets.

Lover and Loving are inseparable
and timeless.



Although I may try to describe Love
when I experience it I am speechless.

Although I may try to write about Love
I am rendered helpless;
my pen breaks and the paper slips away
at the ineffable place
where Lover, Loving and Loved are one.



Every moment is made glorious
by the light of Love.

I want to undress the sorrow that bites the wings off doves, make it bear, make it holy, make it scream.

I want to sing to the anger that shakes your hands, beads the sweat upon your palms. I want to soothe it to sadness, soothe it to scared, soothe it to self-loathing, and then soothe it again. I want to rub its shaking shoulders and kiss its forehead until it is serene, sleeping in the backseat.

I want to whisper the stories from all my birthdays and what age means to the God that chokes the air from your blood and puts fear into the stomach of mothers. I want to calm the waves of your heart, be the lighthouse to the way you felt at age five, wrapped in the forgiving and fragile skinned arms of your grandfather.

I want to be the lung unchanged by smoker's death wish. I want to be the alcohol that slips passed your lips and makes you tell your mom that you love her, tell your sister it wasn't her fault, tell your dad that you're healing. I want to be the ****** that moves under your marked skin, the blood that can't pass the tourniquet.

I want to feel myself inside your throat, climbing to taste your teeth and thread string through the spaces between your words, make a tapestry of every missing apology.

I want to be the wind shaking the curtains of every girl who has starved herself, cold and realizing that a woman is not a body, a woman is the bearer of life and bearer of tenderness. A girl eating an apple, telling the grass that the moon is everyone's mother and will never let the tides rise or fall without a gentle tug on the sleeve of the oceans, "breathe".

I want to be the life that moves through the earth, the snapshots in motion that we call time, the peace that the bottom of our lungs must feel.

I wonder if they ask her
about the bruises around her neck.
The ones just under the line of her jaw,
dark smudges of broken blood vessels
eerily resembling the shape of my hands.

I wonder if they notice
the way she stepped softly and wide
for days after I took her inside
of the tent last weekend
on that one rainy night.

I ponder if they see
the peculiar way she looks at me
or the lights in her eyes
when I say that she's
all mine.

When we first met
She was unaware

How far she'd fall
How much she'd care

How deep the love would
Weave between

Our hearts no boundaries
Can be seen

A love so strong
So sweet, so kind

A love she thought
Would never find

Her broken life
Would never mend

The love we share
Will never end

I'm in love with you.
In every way I thought I'd ever love someone
And in every way I never thought I ever could.

You brought a light into everything I hated,
And showed me that the darkness behind my eyes didn't scare you.

I didn't try to wipe you clean and make you perfect,
And you didn't try to do that to me either.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for loving me.