i'll never be a poet

love thermometer

oh my darling, my dear, sweet love. by the waxing moon do i keel over in anguish, my belly swells with thy fruit but my pomegranate heart torn. thy fingers have dipped past my chest and peeled my heart and littered my ribs with leaking seeds, all for a taste of sweet blood as thou bringst those orchid lips to dripping fingers. my love, didst thou know i feel it? snaking tongue lapping up my still-pulsing blood, my life veining round the hard pearls of thy teeth, the undulating tunnel of thy throat.

beloved, it is almost dawn- you shall do best to drift off in sleep, and i will bid you farewell with a kiss to your locks.

stay, please? will thou not let mine eyes gaze upon thy soft face? at night i only have grazing of thy hot lips and steam from thy nostrils warming my upper lip as a sketch to carve an image that i might look upon behind the veil of a closed eye- but i am no sculptor, but a woman whose eager hands trace and cup thy visage unmoulded, a slab with my fingerprints dancing over the surface, but no form to behold.

beloved, the fog in your eyes is better than my truest form by hundredfold. fare you well, beautiful.

i beg of thee, leave not.

i must.

leave me not. please.

very well, love. but only an hour, no more.

my beloved dares to lull my vulnerable soul to sleep, to ensnare me in slumber's stone chains to expose to the sun? your hands, gentle as they are, shall not stroke my hair to darkness, beloved.

think not of it as a lull, but a woman's sore attempt to print more and more of thy being onto mine heart.

is that so? i would have thought my imprint onto your soul is infinite memory enough- you can bottle in millions and drink.

i fear i will lose the memory of thee. thy shape moulded to mine- i must remember it, in the space of air i hold in the day. in truth, the elixir i taste every night fills me with bliss abounding, but thy cruelty does deny me blessing eternal.

cruel, am i? 'tis not i who is cruel. 'tis fate. for if it were you knew my body, which you do in adequacy, you would seem to pray to have your memories burnt, and cry for the winds to take you past home to your grave.

oh, darling.

it is true.

i know thee. i know thy body and thy soul.

then, peace.

no! i know thee, and i know thy body and... limbs.

then it is foolish, beloved, to want to know more.

verily, it is absurd to command that zephyr to bring me here when thou hadst the means thyself.

psyche.

and 'tis most ungracious that thou knowst my name, but i not thine! mine own husband! who espied me from yonder and plucked me from my land and dressed me in love up and down and all around and then, oh then, planted what he pleased in my core!

i cannot.

i would make haste to leave before thyself, but i know not if the winds are ready.

beloved. what must remain unseen, protects our treasure.

thy excuses fall short. no matter. i have a house, humble it may be, but i shall return to it. zephyr? zephyr! call him to take me.

call him!

call him, else when i return- why, i shall never return here at all.

then what shall bar me from keeping you here?

this is most disgracious. a thousand curses befall thee at once. and spittle from the mortals. they shall cast their eyes away from thy fallen self.

and turn to worship you?

why, they already do. it would not be a challenge, rallying my men.

then it would seem your wish has come to pass since our births, as destined by the gods, they have passed your talented lips- are you sure you're not an oracle in addition to a miraculous kisser?

why- what- oh, you!

now the one speaking truths into this world is i. for mankind has never looked upon me. they only have eyes for each other, for the gods walking the earth with them. the mighty, the wise, the radiant. and 'tis i who hath made them look so. no one should cast their gaze upon me, i, wretched devil pointing them astray.

let me be the first to have eyes for thee.

if you do, our love is lost.

love is never lost.

love wanders and chooses and damns.

love is a lace all around, a global mist we walk. we catch onto its dew-dotted web and find ourselves attached somewhere to someone, and it is a wonderful, sticky agony. we trip over love's netted lines, we untangle ourselves to walk into another, all the while rippling the surface of the earth. neither human nor god nor love chooses, we sojourn its aeolian presence all around and breathe in- we never, ever lose love.

darling?

oh.

all is calm, and i at peace. i will not lose thee.