Love Like a Mango

Dec 22, 2014

There was a fullness to our love

like that mango just within your reach
unblemished and warm
falling straight into your palm
eaten under the shade of the tree
juice dripping down your elbow

temporary in its bliss,
but perfect in that moment.

Tensions

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I am beginning to name my knots.

Let one in my neck be Wanting

from every time I clenched my jaw after breathing in her scent.

Let the tightness in my shoulder be Disappointment who is also called Shame

a product of still wanting him to touch me

even though we both know he shouldn't

and being caught between recoiling and not.

Finally, the chronic ache in my back will be Distance

from consistently loving people that are too far away.

In the same way one muscle contracts as the other relaxes

these pains are interconnected

and I know that all these names mean the same thing:

I hold on for far too long and I need to learn to let go.

Dear Beloved

An open letter to everyone I’ve ever convinced myself I loved.

I.

I am still sorry.

I fear that you were just the

first in a long line

of men I will be

all too willing to bury

my loneliness in.

II.

 Now that I’ve figured

that you wronged me, I am not

ready to forgive.

III.

I loved you more than

you knew, but you were still right:

it was not enough.

IV.

I have learned what the

infinite tastes like but

I still haven’t learned

that people can’t be

 fixed because they aren’t broken,

or that I deserve

better.

Coming Out

I read that we never get

to stop coming out.

Well I came out to myself the other day,

Stepped out of my glass closet for a moment,

Well, not so much a class closet than one of those

Cabinets old people use to store their china
I am transparent, the way I hoard your gifts,

Your presents, your presence.

I never tell the ones who need to hear it the most.

Instead I let it rest on my lips the way I wish yours would

And flitter round my tongue the way I want yours to,

But I can’t.

Because I only tell you in sighs I hope you read

Or maybe see it in my gazes that linger too long

Or notice how I touch you too often, sit too close,

Smile too much.
I am transparent in my cabinet as I watch your hands

Dance across tabletops.

But I would never come out to you.

I much rather confess to strangers on the internet,

Or in ambiguously phrased verse,

That I dream about you at night

And I think of you all day

And while I may joke about others,

Everything I say I love about them,

Just reminds me of you.

An Education

I want to learn the language your body speaks,

Whispered by your hips as you move,

Decode the ciphers between your sighs.

I have learned the angle of your slouch,

The spread of your fingers

And the coil of your curls.

There is a science to you I have not yet learned.

I have learned the contours of your face

The locations of your moles

The longitude and latitude of your dimples

The length and breadth of your smile

Better than I ever learned geography.

Maybe I’d map those contours of your face

(Which I’ve already committed to memory)

but I can’t.

To recreate the brownness of your skin
is more motivation than three years of art

Ever were.

Writing commits you to memory.