AMP_thesunandherflowers

you must remember it too

how the rest of the city slept

while we sat awakened for the first time

we hadn’t touched yet

but we managed to travel in and out

of each other with our words

our limbs dizzying with enough electricity

to form half a sun

we drank nothing that night

but i was intoxicated

i went home and thought

are we soul mates

how do i welcome in kindness

when i have only practiced

spreading my legs for the terrifying

what am i to do with you

if my idea of love is violence

but you are sweet

if your concept of passion is eye contact

but mine is rage

how can i call this intimacy

if i crave sharp edges

but your edges aren’t even edges

they are soft landings

how do i teach myself

to accept a healthy love

if all i’ve ever known is pain

the middle place is strange

the part between them and the next

is an awakening from how you saw to

how you will see

this is where their charm wears off

where they are no longer

the god you made them out to be

when the pedestal you carved out of your

bone and teeth no longer serves them

they are unmasked and made mortal again

- the middle place

when you start loving someone new

you laugh at the indecisiveness of love

remember when you were sure

the last one was the one

and now here you are

redefining the one all over again

- a fresh love is a gift

i am trying to not

make you pay for their mistakes

i am trying to teach myself

you are not responsible

for the wound

how can i punish you

for what you have not done

you wear my emotions

like a decorated army vest

you are not cold or

savage or hungry

you are medicinal

you are not them

he makes sure to look right at me

as he places his electric fingers on my skin

how does that feel he asks

commanding my attention

responding is out of the question

i quiver with anticipation

excited and terrified for what’s to come

he smiles

knows this is what satisfaction looks like

i am a switchboard

he is the circuits

my hips move with his—rhythmic

my voice isn’t my own when i moan—it is music

like fingers on a violin string

he sparks enough electricity within me to power a city

when we finish i look right at him

and tell him

that was magic

when i walked into the coffee shop and saw you. my body did not react like it had the first time. i waited for my heart to abandon me. for my legs to freeze up. to fall to the ground crying at your sight. nothing happened. there was no connection or movement inside when we locked eyes. you looked like a regular guy with your regular clothes and regular coffee. nothing profound about you. i don’t give myself enough credit. my body must have cleansed itself of you long ago. must have gotten tired of me behaving like i’d lost the best thing to have happened. and wrung the insecurities out while i was busy wallowing in pity. that day i had no makeup on. my hair was all over the place. i was wearing my brother’s old t-shirt and pajama pants. yet i felt like a gleaming siren. a mermaid. i did a little dance in the car while driving home. even though we were both under the same roof of that coffee shop. i was still solar systems away from you.

the orange trees refused to blossom
unless we bloomed first

when we met

they wept tangerines

can’t you tell
the earth has waited its whole life for this

- celebration

why am i always running in circles

between wanting you to want me

and when you want me

deciding it is too emotionally naked

for me to live with

why do i make loving me so difficult

as if you should never have to witness

the ghosts i have tucked under my breast

i used to be more open

when it came to matters like this my love

- if only we’d met when i was that willing

i could not contain myself any longer

i ran to the ocean

in the middle of the night
and confessed my love for you to the water

as i finished telling her

the salt in her body became sugar

i say maybe this is a mistake. maybe we need more than love to make this work.

you place your lips on mine. when our faces are buzzing with the ecstasy of kissing you say tell me that isn’t right. and as much as i’d like to think with my head. my racing heart is all that makes sense. there. right there is the answer you’re looking for. in my loss of breath. my lack of words. my silence. my inability to speak means you’ve filled my stomach with so many butterflies that even if this is a mistake. it could only be right to be this wrong with you.

if i’m going to share my life with a partner

it would be foolish not to ask myself

twenty years from now

is this person going to be

someone i still laugh with

or am i just distracted by their charm

do i see us evolving into

new people by the decade

or does the growing ever come to a pause

i don’t want to be distracted

by the looks or the money

i want to know if they pull

the best or the worst out of me

deep at the core are our values the same

in thirty years will we still

jump into bed like we’re twenty

can i picture us in old age

conquering the world

like we’ve got young blood

running in our veins

- checklist

what is it with you and sunflowers he asks

i point to the field of yellow outside

sunflowers worship the sun i tell him

only when it arrives do they rise

when the sun leaves

they bow their heads in mourning

that is what the sun does to those flowers

it’s what you do to me

- the sun and her flowers

sometimes

i stop myself from

saying the words out loud

as if leaving my mouth too often

might wear them down

- i love you

the most important conversations

we’ll have are with our fingers

when yours nervously graze mine

for the first time during dinner

they’ll tighten with fear

when you ask to see me again next week

but as soon as i say yes

they’ll stretch out in ease

when they grasp one another

while we’re beneath the sheets

the two of us will pretend

we’re not weak in the knees

when i get angry

they’ll pulse with bitter cries

but when they tremble for forgiveness

you’ll see what apologies look like

and when one of us is dying

on a hospital bed at eighty-five

your fingers will grip mine

to say things words can’t describe

- fingers

there is no place

i end and you begin

when your body

is in my body

we are one person

- sex

if i had to walk to get to you

it would take eight hundred and twenty-six hours

on bad days i think about it

what i might do if the apocalypse comes

and the planes stop flying

there is so much time to think

so much empty space wanting to be consumed

but no intimacy around to consume it

it feels like being stuck at a train station

waiting and waiting and waiting

for the one with your name on it

when the moon rises on this coast

but the sun still burns shamelessly on yours

i crumble knowing even our skies are different

we have been together so long

but have we really been together if

your touch has not held me long enough

to imprint itself on my skin

i try my hardest to stay present

but without you here

everything at its best

is only mediocre

- long distance

the moon is responsible

for pulling tides

out of still water

darling

i am the still water

and you are the moon

when death

takes my hand

i will hold you with the other

and promise to find you

in every lifetime

- commitment

god must have kneaded you and i

from the same dough

rolled us out as one on the baking sheet

must have suddenly realized

how unfair it was

to put that much magic in one person

and sadly split that dough in two

how else is it that

when i look in the mirror

i am looking at you

when you breathe

my own lungs fill with air

that we just met but we

have known each other our whole lives

if we were not made as one to begin with

- our souls are mirrors

it has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. i learned everything is temporary. moments. feelings. people. flowers. i learned love is about giving. everything. and letting it hurt. i learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. i learned all things come in twos. life and death. pain and joy. salt and sugar. me and you. it is the balance of the universe. it has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. making friends out of strangers. making strangers out of friends. learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix just about everything. and for the pains it can’t there will always be my mother’s arms. we must learn to focus on warm energy. always. soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world. for if we can’t learn to be kind to each other how will we ever learn to be kind to the most desperate parts of ourselves.