the art of exploring a human being

Thinking about actually being able to study and explore someone excites me so much. the most intimate and tiniest of things just get me so anxious. and I mean actually watching them, taking in every tiny little aspect of their body while it’s living right there with you. to watch the skin stretch along their rib cage whenever they take in a breath. to watch if their lips move even just for a few words while they’re reading, to watch and see if any emotion strikes them from the page. to watch someone’s cheeks fill up furiously with a flushed red, splotching their neck and their chest and their shoulders and every which way it spreads. to watch the skin of their lips tear right when they’re pulled apart from one another, and actually watch the corners of their mouths curve noting when exactly the dimples dig in. to hold their palm and watch their knuckles roll while their fingers fidget against yours. to watch the exact moment someone’s eyes glaze over when tears are swelling up their eyelids. to watch their limbs tremble and their teeth chatter when a chill slides through the room. to watch the muscles in their back contract when they stretch and their body just slightly shake for that brief and calm second they lose control. to watch their habits when they’re laughing so hard it’s difficult to catch their breath, what they do with their hands, their toes, their lips, their eyes, their bodies. to watch the water drip from damp, showered hair wherever it travels off to. to study their expressions shifting from disgust, to irritation, to fluster, to sympathy or to disappointment. to watch them get goosebumps. to press your fingers into their skin and watch it fade to a perfectly imprinted white before the blood rushes back. to watch their stomach jump when they have the hiccups. i don’t know, Such little things could keep me content and locked up in a room gone nearly mad with a list of things I’d like to marvel at. okay yes. That was just on my mind okay. Alright.

( and then, to think, no matter how many times you commit each of those answers and findings to memory, another body entirely would leave you completely clueless and unsatisfied, hungry once again.)

THIS IS NOT A LOVE POEM

I have written too many love poems
 

to write another about the stars


and the way the sun always visits the east
 and west so neither feels alone

so this is not a love poem


but instead it is a poem about the way 
your chest rises and falls
,

when you are sleeping and I cannot.


You have found peace in your bed, 

while
 i am still struggling to share my space,


but you have let me in
 and I am leaving my doors unlocked.

This is not a love poem,
 but a letter to your hands
,

because I feel more beautiful


when they are touching me
,

and even the summer breeze 
cannot boast that honor.

I will not write you a love poem
 because they become about the metaphors
,

and no one is sure
 whose Shakespeare’s sonnets were really about.


I never want you to be anonymous.

There are too many poems


lining the boxes in my head
,

so this is not one
 because 

I will love you,


without needing to write it down.

goodbye November

Christmas, come sooner

cinnamon and spice cake candles, crisp wintry air, flushed cheeks and blood rouged hands, thick cotton knits comforted around necks, constant sniffling from raw noses, snowflakes freckled on long hair, fogged breath, slosh of foot prints, a midnight fires indecisive shadow, crackling of the miniature forest folded beneath, garland strung to greet each hallway, ice cold milk alongside mother’s home made recipes, apple pie pungent throughout each room, carols sung gently from each station, huddling to one another’s body heat, the gust of warmth stirred from home’s entryway, fingers cradling hot chocolate endlessly, skins’ pale translucence, evergreen en maroon.