My English teacher told me to write about you
in two MLA-formatted pages.
I didn't know how to tell her
that double-spaced words
couldn't bring me close enough to you,
or that Times New Roman
never was the right font.
No, you are of Greek constellations,
stars on the ceiling
strung from Orion's Belt.
You are a comet streaked across my
black canvas bedroom walls at midnight.
I sit by the window during those late hours
and try to write you down,
searching for the right adjectives
to describe the way my cheeks
grow hot enough to
burn paper in your presence.
I never quite nail it.
It might be because of your restless nature,
that kerosene-burning trail of light
left in your wake
as you journey toward the sun.
Take me with you one day.
Pretend that we are two doves
soaring high above trees,
finding home in each other
rather than among crumbling leaves.
Form the letter 'o' in the skies;
take me around the earth in circles
so that we may learn to love
even when life becomes repetitive.
Don't bring me home when we are
no longer suspended in the atmosphere,
no longer timeless.
Forget that clocks even exist.
Call me selfish,
but I only want your eyes
to rest upon my hands.
I suppose disregarding the hour
will force me to turn this paper in late,
but I could never turn in a paper
without an end.
And you are endless,
from the crescent moons formed
every time your eyelids shut,
to the warmth of your sunbeam laughter,
you are a continuous cycle of night and day.
With the moonlight guiding my
unsteady hands,
I search my bedroom,
looking underneath pillows
and behind old pictures
for another word to conclude this.
I stop when I hear a distant echo
that can only be your voice.
Its hollow reverberations inside my skull
remind me why I began
to lie awake so late at night in the first place.
I visit you in my dreams—
it’s the only place you allow me to find you.
Some secret chamber of my brain
must have you trapped
if I am only able to meet you there.
And that's the first time I ask myself:
what love can exist when it's all in my head?
It doesn't matter how cloudless the skies,
or how much daylight is on the horizon when I'm with you.
I will never be more than that insecure girl you see
fixated on her shoes among a group of people.
I will never be more than that girl you notice
clutching books to her body as if they alone can protect her
from the waves you create inside her chest.
I'm just an addition to the crowd,
a person occupying space in the halls,
an obstacle on your way to class.
I'm sorry for being too late.
-mp