I.
It is easy to write about
burning desire
easy to write about
the taste of hellfire
It is harder,
my love,
to write about the way that I love you
What can I say
that does not understate,
love poems are tricky
because you are too much for words

II.
She's emerging -
as if from a dream
Just waking up from a brief fantasy
the kind of dream where
Icarus kisses the sun
without falling to the sea
and children who believe in
flower power and gumdrop rains
stay flowers forever and never grow up

She's waking up,
phantom kisses still tracing down her skin
She's waking up,
phantom kisses turning into phantom pains
as the realization sinks in
she's never been the best at goodbyes
so she'll hold onto phantom kisses
because it's better than farewell
and someday soon your lips will feel solid again

III.
In another universe,
the day is always at dusk,
the sky is always pink and blue
and I met you briefly in the street
walking home from school at seven years old
I show you my skinned knees proudly
hug you quickly
and we never meet again

In the next one over
flowers grow on purple clouds
and I grew up next to the
cornfields and the wooded creeks
I dye my hair blue in eighth grade
and you kiss me the summer before high school
we say we'll stay the same
all of high school
but my friends don't like you
and neither of us learned
how to stand up for ourselves

In every universe,
we find each other somehow
there is no reality in which
my hands do not find some way to touch yours

IV.
Before I was mine,
I was yours
and before I was yours
I was no one's
You were the first to look at me
and say Let's slip you into something more comfortable

Like your arms

Like my own skin

City of two hundred sixty five

thousand people

City of one hundred and six

thousand houses

and yours is the place

when my mind went blank

and I didn't feel safe

Because I was yours before I could be mine

V.

How do you remember all that?

It's your left thumb

I always forget

I always remember

Lunch is third period on two-hour delays

I always forget

I always remember

two brothers and two sisters

I always forget

I always remember

How do you forget?

I'd like to learn to remember

I'd like to be allowed to forget