---

∴

there is no one like you.

not in the world,
and i’ve looked.

 

i have wondered about you
on gravel roads
and in elevators,
in strange woods,
and when the food took too long
at restaurants.

even now,
if there’s a moment
that escapes from life’s plan
i consider what
you’re doing.

if i muse well –
the things you must be up to –
i let myself imagine
doing them beside you.

 

when i leave town,
it’s the worst
(or the best;
depends how you look at it,
i guess).

 

the structure of normal
and the vision of “my life”
fades a little
and all the new things i see
or taste
i want to bring to you
like a little kid
with a coloring page
to show you:

be amazed.

 

by nothing really,
but it’s everything, too.
because only your eyes could see it
the way i do.

with whom else can i share it,
when there’s no one like you?

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

i think i’d take
the form of nothing
over the shape of love, unfilled,

which is as good as an empty box of raisins.

 

isn’t it laughable?

the structures we build
to leave hollow?

 

even this fleshy frame
peeled and polished every day,

i still wake up in,
dusted with the dreams
that were trying to make their way inside me
throughout the night.

maybe they knew there was space
that could be filled.

 

by the weight in me
i know there must be something
in there.

how else could all these words
come splashing out
like random spillings of split piñatas?

perhaps someday,
all these encumbered quarrels within
will stack upon each other
in tidy assembly

and fill the form of nothing
so full,

it brims and pours out
as love

and flows back again.

 

until then,
we are candy wrappers
that blow away in the wind,
chased by the neighborhood cat
and collected against fences
while we wait,

knowing we should be filled
with sweet things.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

of course you’re on my mind.
isn’t that what goodbyes do?

we wander through the world,
slightly cryptic and tolerably cold,
wondering about the wants
we won’t let ourselves pursue.

i’ve laid out all our papers before me –
the ones that assess our compatibility
and offer statistical rates of survival –
and read them in repetitious drumming
to get it in my head.

they say i’m smart to do so.

i know how unlikely we are.

·

all that knowing doesn’t keep you off my mind, though;

not this morning,
when we were just laughing
in my dream
and the wrongs
were still with us
but ignored –

‘cause you can do that in dreams.

 

i can fill my mind up with other things –
i’m not worried –
it quells the ache-wait
and fills the forearms
with duty.

though,
for this timeless second,
i’ll sit in gray white morning
until the echoes of dreams
fade into phone calls
and the clicking of my keys,

and keep you firmly
on my mind.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

when i was young
i’m sure i feared things
for their possibility:

 

monsters – they might exist.

heights – i could fall.

dark – i might get lost.

 

but after years of meeting monsters
and climbing
and jumping
and finding my way
back in the dark,

i think i’m more afraid
of things
that might NOT be.

 

like love.

 

what if it isn’t?
what if it really doesn’t survive?

 

God help me,
there is no thought
that chills me more.

 

i hope,

i hope

something like love
is hiding under the covers of me
and can be discovered
like a lost pet:

a little feral
and suspicious,
quite hungry
and disheveled,

but real,

please let it be real.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

do not deceive me, friend,
and say that you would hold me
while i cry,

for i am a deluge of sorrows
that’d drown you.

 

do not console me, love,
and tell me you’d stand by me
come what may
and in danger

for i move fast
and ferociously
when frightened.

 

do not wait for me, proud one,

for i get lost in fields
that fall off country roads
and go missing
to braid blades of wheat
into bridal gowns.

 

do not consider me yours,

for how could i be?

i am not even my own.

 

now i see
the only Sea
that could cup my weeping

or Strength that i could stand,
doubtless beside;

the only One patient enough
to wait for me –

 

keeping watch
keeping watch

 

– i must live out all my days to meet.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

for a long time,

i pictured

coming into heaven

with God looking at me

sternly

and saying,

“shame on you

for not being more like me.”

 

 

but i’ve been changing

lately,

 

 

and now imagine

His smiling face –

a glow that lights a thousand suns –

saying,

“thank you for being

all of you.”

∴

 

 

---

 

∴

cold can creep
in insidious ribbon
through little cracks and fissures
unseen.

it lurks as a phantom
and pounds as a storm
outside our doors and windows,
changing tactics and direction,
but always seeking a way in.

i sense it,
sometimes,
when i’m sitting on my couch
wrapped in robe and quilt,
and when the house is cool
with morning.

i hunker down in this illusion
of warmth
and i feel it –

the cold –

lap at whatever skin
i left bare
and exposed to air.

there is a little pang of fear
when i consider what cold could do to me,
and the soft spots it might freeze.

but then i remember
the love in me,
raging –
a fuel-less fire
locked in a furnace.

i close my eyes
and find that heat in my heart
and force it down to my toes
till they tingle
and move like toddlers.

i push it out from my chest
with a kiln’s breath
to match
the cold as it comes

until the fear turns into gratitude
for forced reminders
of the hearth
i hold inside.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

i’ve heard that it’s infinite: love.

that it knows no bounds.

that it grows…

 

but what if,

like a breeze that refuses

to come on a hot and unbearable day

in dry summer,

love chooses to live in other climates,

and i am left

blowing kisses on my sun-burnt skin

in remembrance

of it.

 

if love is wind

like that,

i can see the foolishness in me

as i look out

on my yard

and see the chimes and spinning ornaments

i’ve filled my landscape with

in hopes of playing with the only natural thing

that evades me.

∴

 

 

---