You Scare Me

you scare me.
the raw reality of another human being.
this close.
there is something unsettling
about letting you in.
an unknown factor, no matter
how closely i peer into your eyes or
how often my fingertips dance over your skin.

your thoughts are independent in your head.

you could bare your teeth without warning.
change your mysterious mind about anything.
every moment offers you the opportunity to 

leave,

but you are still here.

I Know Something You Don't Know

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Tantrum

No, she cried. No, you don't understand. If we don't last, I know I will survive. I will love others. I will be happy. You are not the first, and there is always one more. The sea is vast and deep. The garden has no walls. But I swear you are different. I swear you fill all the gaps that others left gaping open. I want you in my heart, not anyone else. If you leave, someday I will find myself saying this again. To someone else. But I don't want to. Let it not be so. Give me desolation! Give me dissolution in the face of this quiet continuing! I don't want peace! I don't want moving on! Not this time!

149

I.
Love knows a trap when it sees one.

The two breathless beings poised uncertainly over the trail of crumbs

Is a clumsy clue.
Look up, you fools!
It watches you!



IV.
Love tiptoes on silken hooves.
Trailing those who wish to track it.
They recite the things that love should be,
But their whispers only mask its
Reality.



IX.
Stop with looking.  Abandon the hunt.
Dance, and Love will slip into the steps.
Lovers, dance.

Words Our Mouths Have Spoken

I.

The words stack up, line by line and row by row.

I blink and there it is, 

A wall of Happy, Safety, Sweetness, Darling, Dearest, Longing, Waiting, Hoping, Kisses, Soon.

But he is on the other side.

III.

Look at all these words between us.  

We describe our happiness and 

Wait to feel it.

VI.

This wall is a battlement of Incan-fit boulders

It protects us from the nothing.

One day,

When there is no more nothing,

When there is sunlight and skin and looks and touching instead,

We will be the cannons and the ladders

Laying siege to the stone box that our loving words have built,

Freeing the hearts so carefully kept, and 

Watching where they go.

 XIV.

The words our mouths have spoken

Must be swallowed 

And re told 

Without words.

To My Valentine

Red wagons are red.
Blueberries are blue.
Some things just are.
Like me liking you.

Please Take It

Please take it. I want you to have it.

This heart is useless beating in my breast.

It rots.

It tosses with wild spinnings.

(Lodestone seeking,

Never finding.)

But you it likes.

It purrs.

It stares.

It paces.

It holds its wild breath. 

These ribs were never more cagelike 

Than while I wait for you to know

(Like I do)

That this heart belongs with you.