incongruent
my heart and yours went,
with mine supposing importance
and yours subsisting in ignorance.

050915
for j.b.

I, a woman of letters, have been waiting for you, a man of numbers. I’ve been fantasizing of the day when you would deliver at the porch of my heart your algebraic equation. The x’s and y’s merged systematically with all the symbols, forming an indelibly inked pattern that would finally make sense. I have been waiting and hoping and praying, but all I’ve got so far are your invalid equations, the confusion, the uncertainties, the unsolvable mathematical sentence that I want so desperately unscrambled. How can you not, in your genius, find the right equation, even as I now try to draft a coherent verse?

for j.e.
*013115

I have not grown accustomed
to the sound of your messages.
Their presence did little to assure,
nor did their absence cause unsettling.
Today, however,
I must admit
that I have waited for that bell.
My heart salivated
at the sound of passing bicycles,
hoping finally it was you
remembering the love
you have left waiting.
I wonder:
How could you have conditioned me
to anticipate something
that has never been constant anyway?

for j.e.
*013115

this thought, the only one,
i let loose tonight -

i want you.

123114
*for j.e.

what i find so
fascinating about you is that
you never seem to start or
end where you are supposed
to. no, you have your own
pauses and stops, and the
more i try to follow
you, the more confused i
get. is there any pattern or
sequence to you that i can
decipher? is there
a glitch in your equation which i
could probably unscramble? believe me. i find
that you are more beautiful in your
insistence not to be understood. i liked that
about you, as that tells me i don’t
have to struggle so hard. but, baby,
i still want to try. let me still
get my paper and pencil out to attempt
to solve you, like that algebraic equation
i can’t seem to ever get right. honey, i am
not giving up on you, the same
way i got headaches over those questions that
tested the logic out of me, eventually leading
me to ask whether i was really intelligent enough to
figure something out. but even then, even when
i am out of my zone and completely
uncertain, i will still follow this
fascination through. who
knows, perhaps, eventually
i will find the right spot, the precise
timing, the exact
variable needed to complete the solution to
us.


for j.e.
*111814

your eyes are poetry.
they reflect
every rhyme,
every metaphor,
every verse
that i cannot
even begin
to write.

for j.e.
*111714

you, to me, are not an option.

you are not one of the many shirts
in my wardrobe.
you are not a favorite pair
amongst my shoe collection.
neither are you a preference,
a comfort food i run to
when i am not feeling well.
you do not belong to a constellation,
where you are but one of the billions
of masses bursting forth light.

no, baby, you are the only choice
i choose to have.

you are that one song i play over and over again,
never tiring of the melody,
always finding something new in the lyrics.
you are the waters i dive into
until my strength is worn out
and i am but flotsam.
you are that puzzle i bring out time and time again,
putting together, scrambling apart.
i know how you look like,
but i always get thrilled at piecing you together anew.

oh, baby, know this:
i am not her.
i am not waiting till no one comes
and everyone’s left
before i attend to you.
i am here,
waiting for you,
choosing you.
just you.

for j.e.
*111614