In anticipation of the too-few precious hours in tandem, we divulged our carnal cravings at each others’ hands, but omitted fragments, saving them for some other day, finding them too truthful.

When you hold your body to mine, as you have told me you will, I want a flurry of colored breath, peach and magentas and crimsons slipping translucently from every part of me and wafting in and out and between us like a graceful fog, and not just the force of fingers that have waited too long to touch, but the electrostatic brushes of life’s restlessness falling slowly into their own gravity as we learn to trust the moment.

Our lips are full of nerves and that is why a kiss is so much more than symbolic. I placed my lips to the skin of an orange and I was met with the sensuality of the whole terrain of this world. Intimacy then, is the slow press that reassures humanity – the invitation into a world with no walls – the rush of blood that comes from being completely receptive – that is the kiss I want with your soul.

After all the epochs of lovers, these are all the same words, but they are lanterns bouncing across the plains and sparking anew in the way that the naive are always entranced by the lighter in their hand when they first learn how to light a cigarette, elated and dizzy from the *****. Twinkling.

Sometimes all it takes is a breath and I am light and wind and red paper confetti and the moon and a golden orb that turns all it touches into a shining constancy of what’s called love – and I visit your heart knowing that you can’t tell it’s me, and then I must leave– and I know that I was not in my body, but that it must have kept existing while I was gone because I always wake up in tears, and someone had to cry them.

Conventionality dies between us and there are no titles or promises to speak of. I once found security in labels, only to find that they leave no room for the inevitable growth and weathering of time. So I ask little of you – only that you are always true with me, and that you occasionally put your hand in mine.

HEAR THE COMPLETED SONG HERE:
https://soundcloud.com/nataliejcopeland/you-said*

You said, “Why’d you fold my clothes?
I don’t want anyone
taking care of me.”
You turned back to your razor,
ignoring
the sick-stained sheets.

You said, “Let’s just watch tv.
I don’t know anyone
when I’m asleep.”
You turned back to the wall,
ignoring
the two empty feet.

But that wasn’t where
the worst
pain
was felt,
Cuz I didn’t think
that my warm
heart
could melt
All the icy hands
That her cold heart
had dealt.
But then you said,
“That’s all broken.”
And you said,
“That’s all dead.”

You said “I can’t love again.
I don’t want anyone
wrapped up in my fate.”
Well, we turned back to our peaches,
ignoring
how we knew I would wait.

They said, “Is that your pretty girlfriend?”
And you said, “She’s so pretty…”
And that was the end
Cuz we turned back into clowns,
ignoring
the message we sent.

If you wanna know
the worst
pain
I felt
It’s when I lost hope that
my warm
heart
could melt…
Cuz the final blow
that cracked my world
was dealt
When you said…
When you said..
When you said…
When you said…
…. Nothing.

You said, “I’ll still be your friend
When he comes sweepin’ you
offa your feet.”
You put out your cigarette,
ignoring
my tears on the street.

When pins and pressure plates crawl into my spent shoulders
I clutch madly to crush the offending sinews.

When I’ve grazed the side of my tongue with an accidental death-threat
I revisit the spot and repeatedly incise, until I’m ******* crimson and tears.

When the she-squito shoots me up via serrated needle turning me feastlike
My fingernails compulsively scavenge out the adenosine deaminase.

I sniff the arid bottles of perfumes I love that are no longer manufactured.
I re-trace my lost friendships through the riverside paths we made.
I chop onions and slurp hot sauce until I’m dry.

Maybe that’s why I’m stuck on you.