I love you.

Already.

I can hear moonlight
and I can taste rain
and I had all my senses heightened

Since I forgot your name

What They Don't Know

Our friends help us through
the separation

but don't know
we snuck away

last night

to kiss beneath the moon

This Place

Pressed atop your chest
I exhaled "I love you"

and you begged me
to "stay in
this moment forever"

desperately

as if I have a say

In My Mother's Tub

plugged in
the plastic radio I bought at last week's yard sale
and peeled my robe from sticky skin
as Meshell Ndegeocello's
growls begin to drip from the speakers

cut to

the double
indentations
on the bridge of my nose
from the glasses
i wear
on work days

today was especially long

cut to

However bitter against
raised tastebuds
coconut sure smells sweet
on steamed skin

cut to

me squeezing more
onto this tattered
wash cloth

cut to

my head dropped back on
cold ceramic
as my body sinks lower
into sudsy lava

nipples and kneecaps
all that
peak
above the surface

cut to

a thought of you.

and i touch myself
in my mother's tub

Where are you

Irene Grandi growls Italian love songs
as a backdrop for this conversation

90 minutes of "That's so true" and "You know what else?" and "What do you mean" and "I feel the same way" barrel from the other end of the reciever


Rivers of words are leaking through the earpiece

But where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you?

The metal absence of your presence
The heavy presence of your absence

Men who love to listen and a girl who loves to talk
Men with things to say and a girl eager to listen
A dangerous recipe
Don't you think?

And in the midst of it all I still want you
I want the food they feed to be fed to me by you
But where are you?

Where
Are
You

You are
the difference
between
metaphors and similes.

You are
not 'like'
or 'as'

But You 'are'.

Oh baby, you ARE.