For days I tried
To decide
Which part of you to write about first
Can one poem hold all of you?
Can a thousand?

Your essence is untouchable
You’re calm, funny, and true
Your long dark beard
Or the height of your muscular masculine body isn’t what defines you
(I want to press my small hands against you)

Emerald green
And stormy sky blue
(tinged with copper)
A masterpiece landscape all in your eyes alone
Your gaze pierces all my defenses
Or is it when you look at me
And don’t realize I’m watching you too?
Somehow I’m able to ignite your eyes
With my neon voice
And if that was my only purpose in life
I’d live it gladly and gratefully
(I want to press my honeyed thighs against you)

And when you sing and play guitar
The other women
(And men)
In the room
Look to me for reassurance
That you’re not about to run off with their unauthorized affection
Because they’d be helpless to fight you
(I want to press my impatient hips against you)

My first attempt at capturing you
my big bear,
Was to write an erotic poem
But only sensual words came out
Because you light my brain on fire
So my prose is warm
Melted gold nector
And heroin instead
(I want to press my cinnamon lips against you)

So should I speak about your large, calloused hands
Tough from lifting and gripping?
And the way they turn lustrous
The second they meet my sweet almond scent?
My softness folds into them
Willing an arena to form
So we can play
(I want to press my firm breasts against you)

Should I speak of your dark curly hair,
That I know you grow long because I like it?
That hair between my fingers,
Pins me to the ground like gravity
And I wouldn’t have it any different
(I want you to press my amenable body  against the wall)

Or instead of physical attributes should I speak of your kindness and patience?
You not only tolerate my distractions
But encourage me to grow
I’ve done things I never thought I could
Because you gave me a solid base to leap from
You are both the cliff and the air
The sea and the ship in a hurricane
(You’re a tree I can wrap my ambitious legs around)

I have never felt our language as limited as I do when I talk about you

so we will expand:

Yo quiero comer tu piel como una intacta almendra,
Mi amor,
I adore you.

Your hands know me

They so rarely stutter across my thighs, as you drag your fingers like paint,
every bit of me is coloured with you and your rooted musky scent.

Your lips never have to search long, my brown skin will guide your way. Breathe me in, press me in, before my body leaves, astray.

I  need you to rebuild me, the world has all but fell. Hit my target like a feathered arrow, your hands know me oh so well.

Across my waist and up my back I feel your body swell,
trying to find my open spaces, your hands know me oh so well.

Brush my lips with your lingered breath, I promise you I’ll never tell. Touch my cheeks with your tear drops, your hands know me oh so well.

I know we can’t stay here forever, our fire already dwindles. But promise me, you’ll remember me whenever you use your fingers.

Because you dug into my core, and let my hair fall fair,
and while your steadfast hands know me, I might fade, then become air.

So keep me grounded with you, pressed so far into your chest,
and because your hands know me so well, we can finally be at rest

No butterfly kisses as we fall asleep
We’re slumped, we’re spent, a ringing bell

But I know your hands still will find me
Because they know me oh so well


To you I’m a warm aura
A fire contained
And I’m jealous of that warmth
Because for me, you reside so deeply in my chest that the sunlight doesn’t touch you
You are where certain dark things are to be loved
Between the shadow and the soul
So if I was cracked open
Pieces of you would fall out
And I don’t know if I can hold the both of us away from the world forever.
Until then I hold you in my body
Closer to my heart, than to my lips
I dream that is enough
Because what we are can disappear
A morning dew drop on the leaf
If you so choose
Because I can’t.
Having little bits of you
Is like sharp stained glass
How can I ever leave when I’ve fallen in love with our reflection?
A thousand times a day
I have to walk this world without you
And people are beginning to notice my limp
What I’m I supposed to say?
I am no ghost, no slippery cliff
I can’t go between both worlds effortlessly
My body is starting to fray, and I know you will spill out
It’ll be a dazzling catastrophe.

Love letter from B (1)

Alicia- I want you to have this so you know what you mean to me. I never would have been able to sincerely and honestly comprehend such passion before I met you. Thank you for teaching me to better feel, and for making me feel better.

(From B written inside Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)


You pushed too far
Your tendrils curled around my thighs, slinking
Wrapped around my hips, gripping
Caressed my waist, prodding

Slithered to my lips while slipping down my throat searching for a story that I wasn’t ready to tell

You saw colours inside me and wanted them for your own, shimmery and folding into each other, if you couldn’t touch them, bring them forth, then how could you ever know me? 

And if I didn’t let you, how could I ever know you?

These tentacles bind us, slide between us, as words unspoken, but they pulled us so close together I can’t see you as you are

I see you as I want to see you:
Rapt eyes searching my face and losing their own identity in my dark eyes
Nose unknowingly recognizing the scent of my skin,
familiar to you but not since before you were born,
our pairing made before either of us knew we’d be stuck in these mundane bodies

How can two souls ever connect with all this weighing flesh in the way?

Mouth mumbling against my neck, I can’t hear what you’re saying but I know it’s something you wouldn’t dare have me hear anyway

Willingly pulling my colours forth,
(I need to know you)
I erupt in rhapsody,
an envy of the heavens,
and suddenly you’re unsure of your own survival

I tried to warn you before:

I’m taking you with me


Why can’t I breath anymore?
Your words swirl around my face,
suffocating me into a catatonic state.

I try to find meaning in your words, the ones you use as weapons, the ones you use to hide meaning, exploiting them, exploiting me.

How dare you?

Words are for gentle caressing of the soul, a soft whisper buried in the hair of your lover

You’ve perverted them, and they seep like oil into a bird’s back.
Unreachable but not gone, destroying what was once beautiful.

And you don’t stop, forked tongue between teeth,
(Between my teeth…)

Why Am I Important To You?
A study in Brown, my hair, my eyes, my skin.
There are hidden waters that you seek
deep, dark, and raging. 

You want my ultraviolet voice to flow into your ear,
(you do not know what you ask for)

Fair warning:

It’ll crawl into you,
lighting you from within,

You’re bright,

You’re a star,

A shooting star with an oil slick tail;
(and I’m just so much stardust following your trail).