Monsters and hearts are not too different
Their presence is only known by their uncertain existence
Be it, in dark bedrooms or in dark rib caged chests
They are both feared in their tangible appearance
A fear that they could both strike out violently
And at any time, suddenly jumping out of those
Places you can’t see
Only to show their faces to you for the first time
As the last thing you’ll ever see.

I see you walking, seriously, quickly,
You catch my eye or maybe I catch yours
And we know.
That somewhere in the smile we share there is a solution
To the problems we’ve made in our own heads
About what is right, what is proper
How we should conduct ourselves in our love
So that it does not offend the people around us.
We find our solution in ignorance.
The total forgoing of social acceptance
And the ignoring of mandated protocol
When we see each other it’s like we’re hold hands in public.
Like we’re kissing with open mouths our hearts visible
To other people it looks like we are too exposed in our glances.
Like we are heart transplant patients on etherized hospital beds
We are eerily fragile and beautiful at the same time
But only to us who have stronger stomachs
Than the general public who gag at the sight of blood.
We embrace it with a smile
And overlook pale faces who can’t see the
Public displays of affection we can flaunt
By simply looking at one another.

As of late I have felt less like a person
And more like the aftermath of a shattered glass
My hearts contents that were once safely contained
Now spread out across the kitchen floor
And into tiny dust ridden cracks that brooms cant reach
My pieces that were once whole and one now longer recognize
The many parts of itself that use to be neighbors
But now have moved across continents
The circular bottom of my glass
Bounced and shattered making a jagged crystal crown
Perfectly shaped for house mice
The mouse king wears it like I use to wear
My heart.
As a symbol of power of knowing that
If all else fails I have this heart, this crown
So when people look at it they will know without a doubt
That I am good and I am deserving.
But now with that piece of my body separate
From my other organs I am not so sure
Now that it lays too far away from my soul
My brain my body
I am not sure that it means anything.
I am broken and the holy hope I have of reconstruction
Is that dust pan in the closet
And as it collects my dangerous shards of organs
I’ll pick up the bigger pieces with my hands
And hope that my blood is thick enough to act as glue
If only a temporary fix.

My eyes don’t light up when I hear your name anymore,
That fire that would spark in my eyes has given way
To my natural icy blue.
My heart has stopped racing when I see you
And a slower heart keeps my blood running thin
The chills that use to coat my body when you smiled are gone
And I am now left unclothed in the wind
With cold eyes and thin blood and a naked body
But my mind is slowly starting to warm up by itself again
It has pushed you to the back of my skull
And labeled you under a bad memory
Where the heat of your body cant reach my eyes
And convince me to see myself for who you told me I was:
A cold beast who needs someone elses heat.
Without your warm touch I can feel myself
Being able to feel who I am again
Separate from your fire, I can remember how to build my own
And even if I have only just learned how to pick up two sticks
The promise of my own warmth heats me thaw.

I want to know all of you.
The tiny blemishes that would be imperfections
If they marked up any other body but yours.
I want to know the stories behind your scars.
All the ones you've collected over the years
And display on your body
Like old books on a library shelf  
I need to thumb my fingers over those puckered patches
Of skin because all your books are written in braille
And I want my fingers to know those words
In ways your voice couldn't describe.
These welts of words make up the story of who you are.
I hope you will let me open you up
And I hope that after I read all of you
You will still know
That I will always kiss you as sweetly as I did before
I knew all your wounds.
Please know that I will not think you are any less pure
To me as you were before I understood.
Purity isn’t real anyway.
It’s a prison of a concept that’s made with
Bars of guilt and of shame
Keeping you trapped behind your past.
But you are not that to me.
You are my future
And even if I add to your seeming imperfections
And give you a few more scars
Be happy that when I re-read the braille books on your body
I will read about me too and how I want
Nothing more than to add to you.

Promise me you will not
Spend too much time talking
Forever trying to dilute oxygen from atoms
So that you eventually forget
I mean, truly forget
How much you love the sound
Of my voice
Embrace the ache you feel in my voices
Absence when you go away
So that you always remember how much
Every word I spoke to you kept you company
Promise me that even on this circular planet
When you stand as tall as you can
That even though you can’t see the end
That you will look anyway
And when you look you will always be searching for me
Even if you sometimes slump over the curve on this earth
And your stomach aches with the pressure of your arched body
Over this rounded mass
That you will ease the pain by keeping your chin prompt up
And your eyes always forward
Place your face in my hands if you must
I’ll hold it steady so you can have a better view of all you
Can be
And that way you’ll never really have to search for me
You’ll feel me under you holding you up
And every now and then I’ll turn your head
So you can look in a different direction.
And if the thunders of this world are really just the growling
Of your stomach over top of it
Ill feed that ache with my song, my poem,
My nighttime lullaby that didn’t last long enough
You don’t need to convert oxygen in that atmosphere
And either way if you choose to talk
No one would hear you, so don’t waste your breath.
Promise me to wait to talk when you come back down to earth
And you have something true to say.
Promise that when you’re done saying it that
You will listen to me then
Even if all I have to say back is I love you.

When I look at you I see love
It lives all over your body
From the tuffs of your hair
To the tips of your finger tips
To the right side of your face that smiles more than your left
And that love, you wear it like a metal
And it makes you bold, so bold it
Makes me nervous and forget how to talk
And how to tell you that my love is more subtle than that.
You have to listen to it to see it
It comes out late at night after you place your metal on the dresser
And I’m not so blinded-
When your eyes are shut tight
And then I know the only way to your heart is through your ears
And I whisper to you that I love the smell
Of your skin
Or that your lips on my head is the only validation of my worth
That I will ever need.
I love you in words that live hidden in my head
And I know you look for them when you pull me
In closer, when you search my body for mutually shared feelings
But I’ve never been one to sew on feeling to blouses
Because I’ve never trusted a laundry machine
Not to tether my heart’s delicate fabric
So please, just listen to me speak.
Note the pauses in my sentences and
The dips of my voice, the clicks my tongue makes
When I say your name and follow it with I love you
Please know that your name has never been as safe as it is
When I hold it in mouth.
And I will never bit down on it
And love will always be on the tip of my tongue
And you will be the only one safe there.