One With the Sea

At an insignificant time

In the afternoon, five seventeen,

I stood on the edge

Of a very large granite boulder

And imagined

How it would feel

To fall very suddenly

Into the vast and mysterious

Depths of the blue.

Would it hurt?

Would my heart

Leap out of my chest

As I fell?

Would I face the water?

Or turn my back

As it consumed me?

And would I sink

Or would I swim?

Every now and then

As I look so intently

Into the infinite shades

That lure me so subtly

To consider matters such as

These, my heart overflows

With an unrivaled warmth

That not even the cold ocean

Could extinguish.

And I know

That someday, we will be one

And I will allow her to hold

My heart and drown

My lungs and I will feel safe

And I will not feel the cold

As it infiltrates my every nerve

And I will not be afraid.

I knew my fate long ago.

Solution

You are sad because you

Use those who care

Leave those who stay

And treat those who love

As if they are liars

And thieves.

Perhaps if you gave instead

Of took and stayed instead

Of left and did not deny

That I ever cared I would not

Feel as if you had stolen
My heart.

Perfect

Our public displays of affection,

In the presence

Of strangers,

Were perfect.

Our lengthy conversations

About everything

And nothing

Were perfect.

Our comfortable silences

And the inaudible words,

Spoken in your eyes,

Were perfect.

Our lazy days drifting

In and out

Of consciousness

Were perfect.

Filling our bloodstreams

With caffeine,

Aromatic liquid happiness,

Was perfect.

Sunshine, moonshine,

Rain, hail, thunder

Lightning storms with you,

Were perfect.

Everything,

About us,

Was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

Dropped

You said that you loved me,

Past millions stars,

To the luminous moon.

Wrought with imperfections,

In the forms of craters, lakes and mountains.

And back.

And my heart dropped further,

Than a baby bird forced,

Prematurely to fall,

From the safety,

Of the only security,

It had ever known.

All Of You

To say that I love you, from the end of each delicate hair, placed so perfectly and precisely on the top of your beautifully crafted head, to the tips of your immaculately painted toes, would be an incredible understatement. I use the word “crafted” because I have difficulty believing that you are a work of fate. You are no coincidence. I don’t believe in a perfect coincidence. It is true that your physical being is one that I constantly find myself in awe of.

You think your eyes are the most boring brown there could possibly be but of course, they aren’t. In the sun, they’re dancing flames and amber tree sap. Always, they have green flecks. When it’s a Sunday afternoon and we’re lying among the white linen preparing ourselves emotionally for the week and watching storm clouds roll over the city, it’s difficult for me to separate your irises from your pupils. Yours are eyes that I will never tire of losing myself in.

There are seven prominent freckles on your nose.  Do you remember that time when we were meant to meet our friends but they didn’t answer their phones and we spent our Saturday night in the kitchen baking in our underwear and drinking too much? I told you I could turn them into a kind of constellation and you let me do it in blue pen. You couldn’t see it at first but I’d made a crescent moon and when I told you, you said that it added to the list of ways in which you were incomplete.

I have difficulty describing the rest of you in full and keeping my brain in working order simultaneously. Your peachy lips make me tremble. You hate your hands; you say they’re your dad’s but they aren’t. Your fingertips could bring light to any man’s life and not a day goes by when I’m not grateful that it’s mine. Your voice is the way I like my coffee; smooth and strong. You rarely stumble on your words.

You think you’re too boney in all the wrong ways and you’ve likened yourself to a knobby old tree on more than one occasion. When I kiss your neck, shoulders, spine, collarbones, hipbones, knees, I hope you know that I’ve always loved old trees. Let me curl myself around your roots. Let me watch you blossom. I hope that in time, you learn to wrap yourself around me.