Chalk dust coats dark skin and

I find it more stable than most things when

You are standing on the back of a cow in a river 

Trying to reach the piece of fruit that has floated just out of reach downstream.

I know we both see mountains peripherally but

How is it that while wars and design I cannot explain take over your tissues and my mind there

Is this most elegant thing behind and in front of and around us but all we are noticing is the boat sloshing us back towards the shore.

Bells ring and I think of Pavlov while you think of your Grandma Lee and how she turned 94 and then 95, but after that they stopped calling you telling you to write her on her birthday anymore.

I am left focused and wondering what reward there will be once I get that bit of mango out of the river. You see now and have moved on, wanting to shake down new fruits but I am still reaching into the water trying to salvage what is left after some creature already took half, leaving me the sweet ant covered portions.

It must be nice to not know, sometimes, exactly why the bells are ringing.

You gauge what you unleash on the world. It is a kindness, but it must be lonely at times.

Hey there queen of the world--

How long did it take you to know this
is temporary?

I fear that I cannot feel all that I'm required to without my bones singing so loud they can't support my body any longer.

"How can we support a body when you're asking us to hold up so much more?"

Singing bones--don't sing so loudly. Could you hum maybe? whisper perhaps? damn your haunting and
Why am I always crying alone on planes?

Take me to a music table and let me
Choose which instrument I'll pick up today because I'm again flying away from the songs stirring and exploding, and fire sizzles in my blood.

I have a fever most days from the songs in my stomach. I never know which I should play.

Some deep and gorging plans you write with a chewed up pencil on a post-it note and crumple it in your pocket.

We are young still but we are bound to the songs in our bones.

I always thought that there was one path to love.

An obvious one, one smooth concrete, and blossoming flowers, and

hand-rails to keep me very, very safe.

But,

Love is wading through rivers in jungles

Love is saying yes once again when the hollows in our heart beg us to say no.

It is the thin rubber separating the bottoms of our feet from volcanoes,

It is the decision that this is worth it because she is worth it, or we are worth it, even when

Today, 

She or I or us may not know.

I always thought my love would be a simple and beautiful thing,

That all who loved me would celebrate too,

Not the quiet sobs of choice,

Not the fluttery excitement of maybes,

Not the searing realization of loyalties and that my Love would become a filter for who would really remain.

I imagined being held, but not holding.

I imagined being comforted, but not comforting.

I imagined being loved, but here I am---

"Do you know I write?" I thought like a secret.

Like a confused heritage and a history that is the vital piece of me and you might not wonder but I must tell you. 

You must know this thing, about, me.

My name yes and oh this is how I make money and this is how I love and I have a brother and a sister and yes I believe in forever and yes I believe your God is the same as mine

But:

Do you know that in my head all I see when I see you is poetry?

Sip because if you don't now the 

Exposed red of your lips and 

Simple half life you've made

Will dry up and only the floods of dark wine will

Ever make sense

Oh come to the party

Please

And listen

If you don't play the guitar now and let your fingers tremble over black and white piano keys in the homes of this or that loved one

Then you will never be satisfied with anything less than symphonies and the gut wrenching sobs of instruments pummeling one another to just be heard

If you don't taste this now, if you don't bend with the whims of the way you want to move 

You will ache with hunger and your stomach will wrench with need and writhe for the places you said no to.

And if you don't kiss me with the lightness in your lips

Then I will infiltrate your bones and devastate your sense of self with the lingering of my skin on your skin and my laugh will escalate in your ears and we will never stop aching.

Watching you realize the very best of you might be misfirings, disease, something that needs to be fixed and the longing clenching like grasping the ears of corn and twisting once, twice, until the silly thread breaks off between your fingers the raw pieces crumbling, tempt you with the sweet grain

And I look forward to what has already happened.