i gaze into your eyes and at once i am transfixed with you
your soft lips are strawberry and rosé and i cannot get enough of it
i run my hands down your warm body and plant my mouth on your skin
you smell of agarwood and roses and i taste moscato on your neck
you pull me closer and dig your nails into my back (!)
i sharply inhale to a rush of adrenaline and sigh out a flood of endorphins
you then call me 'princess' and i just melt into you—
i believe this is what a biochemist would call "love"
the sun glints on clean, shining snow today,
over fifteen centimetres from just the night before,
and the shimmer draws my gaze and i glance down
i notice i am walking into your fresh footprints now
my heart beats through my ribcage as you stare at me
i try to ignore it but you draw me in and now i can't look away
i feel almost choked trying to fill the gaps with words but
your saccharine kiss politely shuts me up
in your room you pull me in by the hip, right up against you
i am yours for this one pure and unending moment in time
your amaretto breath on my neck and warm fingertips on my collarbone—
i am sure that you could persuade me to stay the night...
i cry when you tell me you love me.
the warm, gentle sweetness of your skin
welcomes me as though i have never harmed you
as though i have never done anything wrong at all.
i shake out my bedsheets and find toothpicks falling out.
they make me smile. they remind me i'm not alone.
you get home from work and leave your bag by the door
and your sweatshirt on the chair in my bedroom
you come back to me - and i to you
in the heat of the summer this year.
on cote-ste-catherine this year you almost kiss me
and i saw everything good in your eyes.
this week the city heats to a boiling point
and young women melt on the southbound A train
a breeze pushes me eastward on 74th street that day
spite and heedless persistence carry me downstairs
the sun is at its peak and i re-enter the subway station
caroline and i explore the city, if only for the afternoon
i take the overnight bus home, only stopping at the border.
i cannot sleep more than a moment but i am finally at rest.
my alarm wakes me with the sun, mere minutes after falling asleep.
i give thanks. i wash my hands, right-left-right-left-right-left, and get out of bed.
the ache in my leg is barely dulled and i wince while pulling my pants on.
i check my bedsheets and seeing a new stain i instinctively laugh at it.
the air in my room is dead and stale.
in the mirror i splash cold water on my face until i can tell who's looking back at me.
i take a stimulant and a cup of coffee for breakfast.
from my lips i let out ancient words, automatic as though i am a machine
built for the sole purpose of singing Your praises and working a dead-end job
i bind Your law upon my arm and upon my head and i mumble to myself
only partially considering the meaning of the tones i produce
then i check the time and head for the door.
in the dark hours of the night i wait for you
only gone a moment, of course, from me
in discomfort i turn over in my sheets
dead air fills my bedroom, nowhere to go
the evening offers little respite from the thick summer heat
it is then i realize you were never here at all
you were, of course, gone before i woke,
gone before my head had ever hit the pillow.
when i dream of you it is so real.
for a moment you are actually in my bed, and then it's gone.
at night my mind is a chilled basement apartment, dark and distant from the streetlights
drips from the ceiling, corners soaked with pyrethroids, intermittent stench of mildew
floors covered in dead pillbugs and winged ants who tried to crawl their way to safety
but paralyzed once the toxins reach their bloodstream, dying in clusters by my doorway
