looking at your pictures..
all i feel is a deep sense of disappointment.
it could've been you.
**** it, it should've been you.
but you didn't want it to be you.
& so i'll let go of the expectations
& all the hopes i had of us being together
as i press "DELETE"
& get rid of all the pictures i have of you.

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

I love you
not because
you're good looking

I love you
not because
you're caring

I love you
not because
you dote on me

I love you
not because
your smiles are sweet

I love you
not in lust
of your crevice
or orifice
or skin

I love you
because
without you
I feel

incomplete within.