//i've never seen you like that but i'm getting closer i know it

to be happy, i don't need you to fuck me;
i need you to stand naked before me, unashamed

i will spend my seconds and my minutes and my hours and my days
and my weeks and months to be with you because i can give up everything
that people tell me should be important because what's important is
your smile

what's important is you with your chest bare and your eyes closed and your smile honest
what's important is that i love you
and you understand why




//little sister

i am writing her this love poem because she asked for one,
and i am letting her know not to tell her that i'm doing it "just" because she wants it
but because i want her to know that i would do anything she ever asked of me.

i am writing her this love poem because of the way my insides knot into bows like the tops of christmas gifts when i make her laugh and because i knew somehow that i would love her before we ever spoke. i am writing her this love poem because i could read her mind when we shivered and clung together on the balcony the night we met and because nothing's ever meant more than when she smiled with her eyes closed in my lap like a butterfly resting on my knee. i am writing her this love poem because my heart uncurls when her hair falls in her eyes. i am writing her this love poem because i don't know what to do with my hands and my tears and my bottomless love when she starts talking and doesn't stop.

i get starry-eyed. i get tight-throated. i get wrist-wringy and tender-tongued, i love her; her hair smells sweet and she fits in my pocket.

when finally she speaks her name, i will know it. when she calls for me, however softly, i will come.

in the meantime i'll call her kitten, little sister, i'll hold her at every chance i get -

and the rest of the time

i'll write her poems.




//i spent too much money that night because i really wanted to meet you

the night we met we saw right through each other, skipped the small talk foreplay right into love
the night we met you curled in my lap and your heartbeat and lashes trembled like moth wings,
and your skinny bones flooded me with warmth that lasted days after you'd gone, when late september settled in and the leaves changed and i still could close my eyes and feel your fingers limp against my knee, your long hair brushing my cheek
and i knew how rare and beautiful that moment was before you told me but you told me anyway.
the night we met you whispered secrets low and desperate but we didn't cry and we had each other.

we slept happily that night.




//transparent (AKA you saw her through your camera lens)

you're smiling at each other
this is years before she'll become herself, years before you could call her by her name
but something in there is shining out from behind all your waves of long long hair,
pre-raphaelite and gorgeous, pure, you see her,
and your smile says everything your words never do.

she's young; thin and beautiful (those are the opposite of who she was supposed to be),
wishes she could be valued emptily for being all those things like the other girls,
wishes her hands and feet didn't betray her,

wishes she didn't love how she feels when she wins a game, love the feeling of flight as she leaps to score,

wishes she could be with you forever and that you'd know her name.




//sure it sounds pathetic but at least i'm being honest

you bite to say you love us,
you touch our shoulders, you lie in patient silence like a scolded dog until we stroke your back, tell you we understand even though mostly we don't and maybe never will

do you tell me you love me in those foreign tongues you babble when you're drunk?
i tell you i love you when i'm quiet for once and when i hold back my hands from running through your hair, i tell you i love you when i leave-

i've seen you just barely cry and pretended that i didn't hear you sniffle in the dark,
missing your long hair you used to hide behind, maybe, but this isn't high school anymore.
do you tell me you love me when you hold me down?

"disappear"
you say when i ask what it is that your old friends always did that i don't do,
"disappear"
you say when i ask what i don't do that makes me different
and i want to write "disappear" on a t-shirt, on a plaque, i want it printed on a medal
because it makes me glow from the inside out
it makes me proud
at the same time that it crushes me
that you could pour out all your love
at someone who would
disappear

do you tell me you love me in your silences and your distance?
i love you so much i'll say it while you're choking me, i'll say it when the fight's over and i'm crumbled on the ground looking at your feet:
"i love you and i never want to disappear"