I’ve knelt down and opened my mouth to check the heart beat of many women

it lives there

louder than the organ that sustains us

but only this time have I opened my heart wider than my legs

and said

 

I love you for the way you make my eyes widen before our lips have a chance to re-connect

for the spreading you enact across my skin more thorough than the spread of red across your neck after your first sip of booze

no matter how little you take in

and I know you take it all

I’ve seen you breathe in the beginnings of words so swiftly my mind gets whiplash

before the space between you having an answer

and me having another question has time to even dance.

 

And the way you dance is why hips were created

not a swan song to reproduction or biological evolution

but little revolutions

on the dance floor

between our sheets

and the streets we walk

laboured

wide open

and fractured

with the footsteps

we walk across

to find some kind of freedom

 

hands clasped

fingers bleeding feeling

heads held high

after mornings of crook necks

and outstretched tongues

 

finding pleasure in each others beginnings

 

this rapture isn’t a myth

and I’m not a bone from Adam’s rib

I am the end of God’s creation

another story to take home

and tell the grandkid’s I will never have

and the death certificate that will read

unmarried

 

I love you for the fierce softness that fingers the little bruises under my chest telling them to heal

as you let your desire fire grenades into my limbs

stopping time with every hurricane that rushes over your eyes

 

a creation story in every kiss

is still more real than the fables

I read when I was in awe of moon face, of fanny

and dick, in the treehouse I always wished existed

 

with you non-fiction is more beautiful than any story I’ve read yet.

and I’ve read so many books my skin has yellowed with the age

of those pages

 

I still want to yellow

but I want to red, pink, green, and blue with you

I want to red, pink, green, blue, yellow, orange, black, brown and violet with you.

Originally published by Bent Street 1 (2017)