you can pretend like it doesn't
because you've never
really done "love,"
but it all adds up.

Like my thousand audience show,
you wait to hear my next creation,
and although it is not about you,
your granny smith eyes,
your Chris Pine-like face,
you say “I’d love to listen.”

In that moment, I don’t say
what I originally plan to say,
the words of a poem about a boy
who isn’t you.
Instead, I say what’s on my mind,
and not the words on the screen before me.

“I want to marry you right now.
I want you to come home
and find a paper that says
“World War 3 is about to begin.”
And next to it, lies a ******* Nerf gun
or a squirt gun because
I’m ready to play.”

As you drift off to sleep on the other end
of the video screen, you say,
“It’s raw emotion” at the use of “*******."
As you say this, I finish the poem,
and can’t help but love you more.

I think you can find the right guy,
the one who holds your hand in public,
tells you he’s gotten something for you,
and even though it’s hot chocolate,
it says more about him than a five-star dinner from another.

You can find the right guy,
if you let go of all of the wrong ones,
the doctor-like type who buys your love
more than he gives it,
or the guy who leaves you hanging,
wondering when somebody will untie you from the monkey bars.

The right guy won’t be perfect;
I can promise you that.
But the right guy, he will be right,
at least for some time.

If that seems to be exactly what you want,
then go find that right guy.
Don’t stop until he’s holding your hand
and bringing you hot chocolate;
however,
if you want more than that,
don’t stop until you’ve gotten more,
more than a hand holding yours
or hot chocolate in the cold.

Find the one,
the one who’s driven you mad,
the one that you’re dumb enough,
dumb enough to leave the right one for.
Find him. Find him in the local restaurant,
the one who wears those beige shorts,
with the big cross across his neck
that guy smiling when he sees you join him,
to leave for a concert, or a drink at the bar.

The one who doesn’t say everything right,
nor tries to.
The one who makes more mistakes than you would like,
but you wouldn’t leave for a million other rights
because you know his one right is more like left,
but his left is also the rightest right you’ve ever met.

Fulton tower, our steel queen,
how you make me cry,
love at first sight.

You’re so high; fresh and standing free,
innocent, but we know your roots.

Black ashes polluting the street, debris clouds,
Those willing to jump. Those willing to die.
Those willing to take others’ lives for pride.
Those who didn’t have the choice.

Fulton tower, I cry. It’s hard
to embrace your beauty
while remembering the past.

don't leave me with a note sheet, a pen, and
painful memories.

because i will.
i will write about you.

even though you may never see it,
and the world may never know it's about you,
you will forever be ingrained with ink,
engraved on the sheet's lines
that you crossed me.

Don't fall in love.

You just ended a two-year
relationship with somebody
you were practically married too.

You moved to the city
and told yourself that you'd focus
on work and fun and anything
but falling in love.

You were down to meet boys.
Hang with boys.
Kiss boys. Go on dates with boys.
Maybe date a boy.

But then, he was there.
& he had been there
for a few weeks,
and you had the inkling,
and you being you,
you had to find out,
and now, look at yourself.

You're looking at him.
You're looking at him
like he's the next five,
ten, fifteen, sixty
years of your life.

Don't do it.
Don't do it.

Oh my, you are one of a kind.

And if you would not mind, I would like to write and write
right next to you, while you read Clarissa Dalloway's story.

I would like to say that I am more of a Richard,
but I really am more of a Sally, minus the homosexual-ness.
Vivacity could be a substitute for my first, middle, and
last name on most occasions.

Yet, I exceedingly relate to Clarissa's adulation for Peter,
"it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket
knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions
of things had utterly vanished – how strange it was! –
a few sayings like this about cabbages,"
barring the pocket knight in exchange for a knit hat or two
that you would wear inside if it was a social norm.

Now as I would write right, my stream of conscious would pour out
like the musings of those about to attend Clarissa's party,
but most will never see my internal conflicts and revelations
because one of those revelations makes me mirror George Eliot.
I blanket most of my verses with a sheet of caution
because even when one's heart is on their sleeve,
that sleeve is a sheet in its own secularity.

As George said, or Mary for those who knew she really was,
"I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved.
I am not sure that you are of the same mind," and every so often
that is why my heart is evident out on my sleeve, and yet
the sleeve is steadfast.

So that is why I propose, if you would not mind,
to let me write and write right next to you,
while you read Clarissa Dalloway's story.

Because, "oh my," that two-word saying that I remember,
as if they are the analogous cabbages of you and I,
you are one of a kind, but so am I;
our minds are more the same than not.

The reality is, if I hosted a party,
I would not invite George, Clarissa, or any others;
I would invite only you, your eyes, your smile, your grumpiness, and your
knit hat, or hats, which I had let you wear inside if you would like,
and we would both read many stories
and write our own story right next to each other.