You grace me with
lightness, bright mornings, cool breezes,
darkness, soft notes, flickering candle flames,
warmth from gentle sun's rays, highlighting text,
and the curve of your spine as you stretch across the sheets.

I have never known peace like this.
This is as true as my heart beating double-time to yours.

I spill words of trauma and loneliness,
of fear, and hate, and years of bottled
up bruises.
I know the stories I convey hurt you,
leave you speechless and unsure how to console me,
But I have never felt safe enough
To flood the world with these confessions
Before I met you.

Your palms apply pressure,
reassurance from an outstretched hand
to a simple ruffle of my hair,
and the empathy runs over from your eyes,
unable to fathom
a child taught respect by fire, threatened with severe burns to be molded, controlled, manipulated,
a child taught their worthlessness by begging for forgiveness,
rejected pleas leaving tear-stained innocence,
imprinting guilt far below just the superficial skin,
You ache for this pain of mine to dull and fade,
translated through the embrace of me into your time and space, mind and body.

I have never known love like this.
This is as true as your heart beating half-time to mine,
So why can't I tell you that I love you?

I write you love poems
Because I need to shape the tumultuous feelings
That occupy my heart and head
At all hours of dawn and day.
The words beg to spill out.

If I had my way,
I would craft words that sway
your heart and mind to think of
me
as consumed in thought as I am of
you.

Two day ago in therapy I wrote you a love poem:
A physics equation quantifying the emotional clarity that is brought by your proximity,
With love as a fundamental constant and a scalar summation of circumstances' mental momentum.

The next evening,
You told me you were going to sleep with a friend,
But the thought of sharing you makes me viscerally sick,
But worse is the ache, the knowledge
That you crave their touch too.

It's a slither underneath my ribs,
Tensing pressure that constricts my lungs and crushes the bone,
Venom through my veins,
Stopping at my heart.

But,
Love is constant,
Love is kind.
And, god, I've fallen in love with a selfish serpent.

Before the floor creaks and groans,
Before either of us wake with a smile or a sigh,
(Before it's too bright for you to say "I need to buy some curtains!")
It rushes by, whipping the wind,
In an explosive noise against rails older than us,
But I am not sure if the sound arises
From it slicing through the air, or
From it forcing a new pattern of breath in the wake of its motion.

But,
Before the floor creaks and groans,
Before you wake with a smile or a sigh,
Before it's too bright, too chilly, or too late- no, just right
I rest my head against your chest
And I can hear the tracks
The gentle thrum and hum and shake,
Beating at a constant rate.

I am breathless with gratitude that I caught this train on time.