things we shouldn't (say)

say (I)

I am writing this without
hitting the backspace-- very much literally
sometimes I stay up at night and write 
you poetry because I can never summon the courage
to walk up to you and when I do the words escape 
me and then I walk away with all my failures
burning inside of me, slowly and steadily
and then all at once

it begins,

with your eyes and then your wrists, or
tracing the bones of your cheek down to
your neck, the slight contours of a collar bone
rising from beneath the fabric of yourr
shirt and forgive me if this is bold but
your posture and the way you sit when you
are deep in thought is a question I find
myself asking over and ovver again, perhaps
the answer is in the way your shoulders 
roll backward as you close your eyes and open
the blinds to face the morning sun, beaming
down warm against your neck

and when your fingers fidget I feel mine
nervoudly twirling twice as fast and when your knuckles
are pressed into your lips I trace the jointed
hills with my eyes and imagine myself
running and running and running; I will never
find the answers standing still, only
when I am moved to the point of stillness and
should I find you suspended in that moment
then I may approach you and venture to
listen and undress the wonders of your
mind and all of its colourful countries

or I may stand and let the words burn
rings through my hands, pairs of wet tears
coming together to form an infinity; I fear these things
are too much, too loud for your ears alone
so maybe I’ll stay quiet, maybe I’ll just go home
and sleep and write until the words no longer
make any sense at all, and then some
in the way that I wish to know and see you
as much as you’ll allow me to, 
and then some; ask me

to listen, for to listen is to embrace as to embrace
is to join completely; to see is to care as
to care is to weep gently; ask me to speak
and the wind will carry you away and 
would you even believe, you
have never seen waves crash so abruptly, nor
oceans fall so deeply