Sewer Grate

It was always about words, or the lack thereof.

I remember when you told me that
the right way to smoke a cigarette was to
bite the filter with your teeth
and then I watched you do it.
I remember standing in your kitchen
with a bag over my head
and no pants on,
the time you brought your cello home
and showed me the cuts on your arm.
I remember sitting on a sewer grate with you
and deciding something might work out
with what was practically only a wide grin.
I don’t suppose it was ever really up to me
and that was my favorite part about it.

Now I think I am nothing more to you
than a character in a novel you want to write.
Perhaps this is proof the same is true in reverse.

In our eternal haste to express the inexpressible,
sometimes nothing is better than to stick your face
into someone else’s crotch.

People like to talk about love
and what it means to love a person
and I am learning that loving a body
is sometimes more loving than loving a mind.
I have fallen in love with many minds –
yet when I love a mind, I dissect it
and build a new one.
I pick out the pieces that fit into
the puzzle that is my own mind
and discard the rest.
When I fell in love with a body
and wanted to love it wholly
I found that I need to learn
to love the whole mind
and that has changed everything.

Yet I continue to drown in my own naivety.
I know I am incapable of writing poetry.
It was easier when poetry was
kissing the soft spots on the side of your body.