Realizing I was in love was like realizing Santa didn't exist
I don't know when or how it happened
There was no jolt or feeling of my childhood crumbling around me
I realized years later that the presents under the tree were from my parents
And realized months after our meeting
I wasn't making myself say I love you

Realizing I was in love was like walking into a pool and finding the water warm
I was expecting a cold shock and minutes wasted getting used to the feeling
Forcing myself to go under
But falling in love wasn't forced but welcome
You were the tide over my head I couldn't wait to explore
Hurrying to wade in instead of taking the smallest of steps

I wasn't dragged into loving you any more than I'm dragged out of bed on Christmas morning
Or into a warm pool in the summer sun
You were a welcome feeling
And it doesn't hurt to say I love you

You said you're not a writer
But I think you're wrong
For when you touch me I feel your soul
You write poems on my skin with your lips
And sonnets with your fingertips
And if your heart poured forth ink
I'd be black with your love

There’s something in my chest
Growing, swelling
A disease manifesting in my heart
It latches to my nerves and infects my brain
It’s love

It overflows from my heart
Oozing through my ribs like a thick river
Of butterflies and tired words
Remembered laughs and the sound of your voice

But lately it’s a symphony of voices
A theatre full of musicians playing my heartstrings
You’re a musician baby, and so are they

I’m sick
Infected with too much love for too many people
It’s a heart transplant
But they don’t take my old heart out first
Just add more and more until they spill from my ribs
Filling every corner of me until I crack

But baby I love it

Love can be boiled down to science
A solution of chemicals colliding to form feeling
Oxytocin, testosterone, endorphins
It’s something you can learn
But it’s not

No one can learn the way you smile
Without seeing it for themselves
No one can memorize the curves of your body  
Or how they feel under my touch
The fluttering in my chest when you laugh
Is not something that can be injected
Your lips against mine
Not something to be sold on dark streets

You’re fireworks exploding in my rib cage
Setting fire to my bloodstream like it were gasoline
And I have no regrets for that
And that’s not something
That can be formulated
Calculated
Or taught
By anyone other than you and me

You have the soul of a lion
Buried deep beneath lessons
Of inferiority and knowing your place
They've told you where you belong
How you're meant to be
But they're wrong

Deep inside you is a predator
Itching for you to see
See the fire in your eyes
Or feel the sharpness of your teeth and tongue
You may not have the mane you want
But you have a mane of fire
Burning from your soul
Pushing free from your skin

No man can stand a lion
You are more powerful than your body
More important than their words
You're the king of the Savannah
And the king of your heart
All you need to do
Is find your roar

Muse
Inspiration, motivation
The will to make art
Whether bending colors to my will
Or carving a painting out of words
The muse is the color in my brain
The hand that guides mine across the canvas

I've lost my muse
I've lost the will to try
To try to make art or weave silk from words
And when I'm longing for it to return
You're there like a desert oasis
When I think of muse
I think of ideas
Of the will to write and create

When I think of you as my muse
I feel like Pablo Picasso
Painting perfect figured from oil colors
Shaping beauty with my hands
Until the words take your figure
Arching across the page like the curve of your body
And painting pictures if your beauty

You are an idea so abstract
I could have never created you
But I'm honored
To create from you