my heart is
flawed by you

no longer able
as it once was

to simply meet
expectations

oxygenation
circulation
purification

I was living
but not alive

until my heart

was awed by you

pas de deux: adagio

you think I
do not see
you searching
for a path
into my heart
your hands rest
against my stony
scars your fingers
clinging, clasping
clawing through
crevices I never
knew were there
(for if I had these, too,
would I have sealed)
you do not see
me watching, wistfully
wondering so
certain you will
quit this path I
hold myself rigid
waiting for you
to abandon me yet
somehow you see
me as I once was
as I would be again
you think I do
not feel you
do not realize
you cannot know
(I cannot let you know)
it is not the wind
caressing your questing
hands it is me
trembling beneath you

spartan

I would lay
my gauze upon
your scars protect you
from a world too bent
on leaching you into
nothing I would
hold you to me
feel you sighing
shifting under me
no one sees you
as I do no one
feels you as I
do I whisper
restraint
even as you sift
into the very
roots of me
restraint
as the bay winds
come laughing
through us
seeing what
I cannot (or
will not)
I am no
longer gauze
and your scars
have long since
healed now we
are threaded through
into a wefting of
me grown into you
you groaning in me
and there is
no restraint as
the bay winds
come laughing
through us
(there never was).

liana

I don’t want
to need you
this way
I don’t need
to want you
this way
or so I would
tell myself
startled that
the vining
I allowed
(youtome)
to decorate
my being
has so quickly
twined onto me
writhed into my
connective tissue
(metoyou)
I am more
accessible now
more supported
yet somehow
off-balance
no longer
independent
or perhaps
no longer able
to shield myself
with independence
even as I struggle
into this new way
of being yet do you
tendril further in
further binding
my heart upon
your heart under
the velvet canopy of
silent September stars
softly I sigh
in wonder that I
need you this way
in amazement that I
want you this way.