Reading your poetry
on a jerky bus
moving away from you
I couldn't breathe.
My breath wouldn't come
to tell the bus driver to stop,
to insist I must get off,
to run to you,
to beg that poetry be written for me,
to tell you I love you.
I couldn't breathe
because
I love you.
Writing now,
it seems silly,
and childish.
Maybe it's not love.
But,
your poetry
grabbed my soul
and made me
green with envy,
filled with longing
to be the passion
that drives those words.
Then, my name appears.
On the paper is "Nikki".
For a moment I obtain
the right - the privilege -
of being the passion
that makes you write.
Love, in past tense,
attached to my name,
attached to your passion for me.
Now I can't see, can't move
still can't breathe.
Now I must write...
now I find the lost, urgent need
to get it all out...
to scribble words on a page
to you.
Now I feel the need for you.
I slept;
tired after the
unburdening of writing.
My soul was tired
after purging itself
only on paper
not to you.
When I awoke,
my mind remembered
and began questioning
what my soul had done.
When my eyes opened
it all seemed absurd.
But, thinking of our time together
I feel something.
If only I knew
what that something was.
I feel compelled
to write to you
in poetry...
compelled to not finish a sentence...
to not think,
but just to write...
in scatered words...
missing grammer...
partial confessions...
Why did we sleep in the
same bed last night?
Why do I miss you so?
Why did the words you
wrote: "I loved her but the winds changed"
make me so sad?
Why does the remembrance of your hand
lingering
on my back after our last hug
seem significant, important?
Why do I feel like
sending this to you
could be the biggest mistake
of my life?
Why will I probably
send it anyway?
Why do things feel
so unresolved
now that we're apart?
Why do I want you
to write a poem
for me?
I wrote poems for you...
pages and pages of words
that just pored from me...
and I missed you...
thought about you...
tried to decide whether or not to call...
then I did.
You were quiet,
and not the same person
I spent the weekend with.
So, I decided not to send the poems.
You know me well enough
to know whether or not
you want to read them.
If you don't, I'll keep them to myself.
Either way, know you've
inspired me
to write again.
You once wrote
that you wanted
to be with me
for a thousand seasons to come.
That once made me
sad...and angry
because that wasn't
what I wanted.
Time has passed
since then.
We have grown,
and now we are
together again.
No one can tell
the outcome
of our relationship,
but I can tell
a few things...
I like being with you,
I like talking to you,
I like dreaming of you,
I like the thought of kissing you again.
A kiss...
and what else?
Fear.
What do you want
for a thousand
seasons to come?
Do we want the same things?
Sex.
I like sex.
I enjoy sex.
But do I want sex?
I want to
fall asleep in your arms
and wake up there.
I want to run my fingers
over your bare chest,
and kiss the trail
they burn on your skin.
I want all that,
and more,
but do I want sex?
Do you want sex?
I think you want sex,
but I know (hope?)
that you want more...
that we're more important.
I want life to be
simple
so we can fall asleep
together every night...
or at least once.
I want a thousand seasons
do you still?
