Seven Lovers

You only told me your first name.  You never asked me mine.

I kept hanging around outside your door, even after you locked it and told me to go away.  I know it was ridiculous but at some point, I became invested and from there I just had to ride the thing out.

I really can't count you since the only attention you ever paid me was to make fun of me with your friends.  But, fuck the rules.  You're in.

My sense of loyalty is sometimes misguided.  Even worse, I have this thing about not flinching while enduring pain.  That explains those years.

When you warned me that you were a monster and at the next full moon you'd kill me, I thought you were speaking metaphorically.  Lesson learned.

You asked me to dance.  I lived off that for weeks.  Until the next time I saw you.  With her.

I was having such a hard time coming up with the right words.  I filled up a notebook with all the wrong ones and mailed it to you.  I got my arm stuck in the mailbox at the post office trying to retrieve it.  The police were called and later, the fire department.  A photographer from the local newspaper showed up.  I had to appear in court and pay a fine for tampering with U.S. mail.  The photographer showed up there too.  I never heard from you again.

4 May 2013

Someone asked me what I was thinking.
Just then it was
that time you
were looking at a coffee table book
on stars and telling
me about the pictures.
I wanted to see
but was too shy to ask
which you must have known
when you said, "Come here"
in that way
you have of saying what you want
plain - as if disappointment does not exist.
Before I could think too much
I moved a little toward
you on the couch
you on the stars
and in one breath
     snatched from the aether and held
you had your arms around me
holding the book open
propped in my lap
so we could look together
and lying back against you was
suddenly the easiest thing in the world
the easiest thing in the stars.
But when someone asked me what I was thinking
all I could manage was
"This coffee makes my hands shake."