This is weird.
I can't love you from afar anymore,
But I don't know how to love you up close.
What a strange and stupid predicament.
I don't know love the way you seem to, from the timbre of your voice
And the movement of your arms in gestures.
I've lived for myself all these years, not really caring
Who came or went, no matter how they planted their lips on my brain
Or took a hammer to a heart,
Or, sometimes, a whip to my back.
I was taught not to expect much out of love,
To scoff at those who did,
And to live without love on my mind.
But now that you're here, I can't do any of those things.
I can do this.
It's just a word, a phrase, a sentence
That will blossom into conversation.
Maybe I can't do this after all.
But there you are, a beacon of light in a dreary, gray-soaked world.
I have a million words for your beauty,
Your grace, your strength, your cunning.
Not one of them will fall off my tongue.
I have to force them off, somehow,
If that's the way to reveal my undying admiration for you.
We've spoken before, but not quite like this.
Your eyes meet mine
And I have nowhere to run.
It's just a word, a phrase, a sentence.
Just say hello.
YOU ARE READING
Aphrodite
Poetry"There's a blaze of light in every word, it doesn't matter which you heard: the holy or the broken, 'Hallelujah.'"- Leonard Cohen The poems in this series center on two characters: I, the speaker, and You, the speaker's subject. I is not a specific...
