I felt the pull of the poem before I saw him coming
This is how the big ones always start, isn't it
Dream boy has me waking up thinking of his gentleness
Dream boy makes me want to curl into his arms but not kiss
Maybe we were sisters in another life before this
We sit on a throne in the back of the bar, he connects freckles on my hand as he speaks of the war
He assumes I will leave and my heart breaks
But I want to wrap him in warmth, I want to give him his words back
My mother is a master of medicine baby, it helps to have a genius on your side
If you roll with me we will do more than just survive this, I promise, we will feel alive
He tells me when he thinks about dying, he thinks mission incomplete
And I tell him that what we look for is exactly what we will see
And while the only thing they have wanted from me, for you it is what they flee from
So if we slip out of these two human shells we call bodies
And walk to the middle of the river where our souls meet, maybe we could call it love
So I hope this poem is not me breaking my promise to him
God, help me fall in love with the person and not the potential for a book
And I'll swear to find love in the most unlikely of places if you give me the courage to look
So what do I do now with this big, huge, beating thing inside of my chest?
I have a thousand new arteries bursting with life and fresh blood flow back into them
I take my lover back home to the coastline, pluck the crescent moon right out of the sky
Just to eye-drop it into the two earths of his irises
I walked him down to where my soul meets the sea and introduced him to the Pacific
As the beautiful Blue eyed masterpiece who fucked the fear right out of me
The first week at his sisters house, settling into a warmth we never knew we had missed
Picture this:
Eyes like the deepest blue of a marble
How they soften around the edges like melted snow when I speak
I thought I would never write myself a river again
Yet here I am in the heart of it all, wrapped up in a humanness so tender it aches
Hummingbirds take oaths inside of my chest when he says my hair smells like wet clay
He hangs a Christmas ornament on this new part of my soul
Like a flag on the moon to tell anyone after him that he'd gotten here first
The man splits open my soul and I'm pouring out fuchsia
He traces his lips down my jaw like he is the God that created my coastline
A sweet, savory patience, taking twenty five minutes slipping socks off of ankles
Oh, the sensories that exist in the tip of each fingernail
So call up my creator, tell her the books about magic are working
Call up New York, tell her I'm coming
We snap a photo to remember
He makes a comment about how his cheekbones are beginning to fill back up in their hallows
The lightbulbs in his eyes are sparking up
And I am not self indulgent enough to claim that I am the cause
All I know is that it is has been the the greatest privilege of my life to watch
How the angles bend so I can see you right
A head tilt to the left, a refraction of light
Tree branches stretch out from where the earth of your skin once parted
Darling, dial up your demons, tell them I have lullabies for them
Tell the darkness I am coming for any time it tried to swallow you whole
As if it could blow out your stars like birthday candles without having to answer to me first
Man made of one-thousand mirrors, two souls reflect back to themselves in reverse
So what do you do when falling in love is now imminent
With a man who equals more than the sum of his parts?
Let me lay these intentions on the table
I will love every part of you that the world has deemed unlovable
His heartbeat was a satellite tower searching for a signal until the day I met his mother over coffee,
His sister and the sunflower portal
Just hear me out, for the man carries constellations on his back
And while I have always been a starling folded into herself
I traced my fingers down his spine and thought
Of course
Of course
Of course
I have found my home now
I lay my head on his chest and hear the ping of every penny thrown into the wells that wished for this
It's like I am coming alive again
He makes me want to paint my nails red, or looking for Alaska, electric blue if it fits
And it seems I have made it through the men made of ghost-water
Drinking my spirit only to turn themselves back into flesh
So bless this bare skin, magic and medicine, for I am filled gently at first, then all at once
With the most beautiful notion that I will never be alone again
These days I wake up in my lover's king sized bed, these mornings are healing me gently
All this tender touch, and laughing
How it imprints, into me
And I have always preferred the word etch as opposed to carve
How it is softly permanent, like a painting
Like how all this kindness has colored me
How these moments I am experiencing
Will be the sentences underlined in the novel left behind of my life when I'm gone
As if to say, please pay attention, this chapter is of the utmost importance
For once upon a time there was a girl who wrote poems about stepping out of the darkness
And just like Shakespeare, she was never famous until seven years after her death
Adding seventeen-hundred new words to the English language
Where men once bit into the peach but never savored the fruit
Two souls planted apple trees that took root in their counterpoints
So maybe there really is life in this place
I count my sunrises like Halloween candy now and sort them out by color and taste
He tells me he doesn't believe in soulmates, I assume he will leave and my heart breaks
But then he tells me my name would ring out if the starlight had sound
He tells me my eyes look like butterscotch
And I feel better now