Someone once told me that life is just a series of moments,
that the past is merely a story we tell ourselves before we fall asleep.
And so I look at him and I am reminded that I am not who I was a moment ago,
and that I shouldn't try to be.
I fear a reality of fiction and distortion,
where my life is a blurry foreign film and he is the fourth wall,
always broken.
I have written of lovers and their seemingly intangible hands for so long that my concept of time is impressionable,
one might even call it sacrilegious.
I have bled dry every metaphor capable of embodiment that I wonder if it ever meant anything,
I wonder if anything ever will.

I want to write him into a scripture of meaning, of something other than illustrated angish.
I want to write about something that isn't love,
that isn't a thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.
I want to write about the way he leads me into rock pools,
like a child being baptized.

I look at him and I am reminded of the ocean,
as if his blood can only move in waves without devotion,
more like instinct.
I want to write about something that isn't love,
because this is more like inspiration.
This is not knowing what could possibly come after his tide falls back.

I am aware that literature always ruins the ending,
that finishing a book mid sentence is the only way to avoid the loss of its final words.
I am aware that beautiful things can never stay,
but maybe that's what makes them beautiful.
He is a picture of my perfect faith,
but he doesn't make me want to believe in religion,
because I know god hates the competition.

For so long I had thought that I was never going to feel anything new,
that I had exceeded the depth of emotions,
like anything that follows can only be a lesser version of something previously felt,
but here I gawk with a mouthful of blasphemous teeth.

I couldn't tell you about the snowstorm he evokes within my chest,
nor the locust plague that raid in his name.
Because this is not a love story,
at least not just yet.
This is a man that has grown roots where I have only planted seeds,
a man that scripts his stories on the soles of his feet.
*And so I look at him,
and I am reminded that I am not who I was a moment ago,
and that I shouldn't try to be.

Tell me, are you a library, full of stories?
Are you a collection of fiction and fact that no arms could contain or no minds that could grasp?
I look into your eyes and I get a glimpse of the catalogs and genres which you keep within you.
You must have had your fair share of history; that is one textbook I want to study and memorize by heart.
Do you think I can be the one to take care of you?
I want to keep you a classic and as a monument in this era of advancing technology.
I will clear the dusty parts of your heart and wipe the slippery surface of your crying face.
I will caress every page you own and help restore the words you've been trying to preserve.
I may not be the one who found you first but I will be the one to stay by your side, until the day either of us crumbles.
So let me check your books out and let me return to you so very often.
Let me call you my favorite place and my second home.

'Twas quite some time ago,
Since I was hardly full grown,
And I found myself in a traveling circus show.

They called me the Great,
Cheered when I walked through the gate,
Because I was the one for which they would all wait.

With a proud, young grin,
Take my hat by the rim,
Never cease to amaze the ladies and gentlemen.

I met a girl who said she'd only one day be a wife.
So I offered her the glamour of my uprooted life,
She took a vow, a tarnished ring, learned the art of throwing knives.

She carried a kid on the ride,
We sat side by side
Though I didn't know where, when sometimes she'd hide.

Even so young as this
I got myself an apprentice,
Like a brother, who almost finished my every sentence.

We performed all the tricks,
Trade off or switch,
It wasn't long before I could see us as rich.

Then one night, as the show was leaving,
She pulled me aside and with sob-filled pleading,
Begged to stay for the baby that was teething.

Said she would go,
If I left, I'd be alone,
But how could I choose between my love and my home?

I left her late in the night
Snuck away when she closed her eyes.
With that poor old baby who loved to cry and cry.

Then when a few years or so had passed,
And my apprentice had disappeared long back,
I went back to my wee little lass.

But imagine my surprise to see
She had more children than the one from me,
And to think she'd also stolen my dear apprentice, Henry!