A silent yearning,
A splash of soft renegade.
This gold softness
Close again like armor;
My collapse, his surrender.

Please my quiet scream;
I crave your emotion,
My charming melody.

Your eyes are illuminating my skies,
twisting their whimsical shimmers,
ricochets of burning golden sparks,
simmering down in graphite ponds,
holding the green water lily leaves.

Your laugh rings in my ears indefinitely,
a deafening gong of sanctity
scaring the birds off the bare branches
and it feels like a ritual.

My hands warm in your pockets,
loving you is being drunk on strawberry wine,
eyes shinning from their sockets,
oh how your eyes illuminate my skies!

Isn't this night full of stars,
this musical night, this sweet night,
this purple tender night,
Isn't this for me?

And this moon peeping from
the branches of this long-leaved tree,
Doesn't this shine for me?

And these, my sweet tears,
fresh like the morning dew,
these are also mine.

I ask that people know me,
that they become mine,
yet, I don't see,
that everything here,
is for me...

© Manan sheel.

The skin on your lips
is the type
of magical MacGuffin
that makes you believe
in enchanted forests
at midnight.
They swim
in the reddish blue, velvet mist.
And after all
isn't magic getting something for nothing?

I told you I dreamt
of plum colored butterfly wings.
You bared your teeth
in a warlock grin and leaned in
to kiss my fingertips.
You drew mystic symbols
on my bare shoulders
and you whispered spells in my ears,
softly.
I vaguely remember
the purple steam around us
before I was way up in the air.
And you said you wanted nothing
but to leave the mauve
lovebite on my hip in return.

Tragically and tenderly-
It's the only way I knew how
to love you.

There is beauty in buried love—
tenderly wrenching.
The subtle and soft carry so much more power,
and every touch is a stolen blessing.
No moment is taken for granted;
we are present.
Every look: a confession
to be churned over and over,
while we waltz with desire
never hastily.
We are ravenous for a love so blatantly before us but we don’t dare to indulge.
Mm-bap-bap Mm-bap-bap Mm-bap-bap
So we make beauty with the withstraint and we call it discipline.

tendertendertendertender.
hold me. i demand it. tenderly.
splay your fingers the long of my spine atop my shirt,
press your chest to mine and caress caress caress me.
clutch at my hips and let your fingertips
leave bruises to prove you were there.
nip at my lips, my cheeks and *******.
lap hungrily, dig your tongue into tender flesh.
drag your mouth over mine,
over and over and over and over.
i want to taste myself more than anything.

pressedpressedpressed so tightly to your chest,
i scratched and clawed and clung and held on.
your hand under my sleeve, up my shirt,
so tender, it hurt to look at you.
we lay in the dark blue of the night,
so silent, i might cry,
you pressedpressedpressed your chest so close to mine;
all my nerves fired at once.