My Love For You Is Not Always Declarations And Milestone Celebrations Or Flowery Similes Of The Moon

What are the laws of nature? Can you tell me? I can only think of one That energy cannot be created Or destroyed That it can only reconstruct One form into another

So what makes a flower bloom? Did I give the blossom My energy? I assume it comes from somewhere Within the soil, the stem But let me believe I can transform Into a beautiful thing too

I'm so terrified Of lava I dream of it Flowing up mountains

An artist can insert light into the world Reach into their own acid stomach Pulling out their intestines Shining, glowing, posing as hope Let me make it so Let me take my own guts in my hands Twist them and turn them Into a blue and red balloon animal Give it to our tired country The rotten thing does not fester Inside me today. Can I do it? I want to take pieces of myself That have atrophied and heal them Turn them into something resembling art

"Be gentle with me" I say to myself, or to my thoughts I want to detach myself from them Thought and I Are not one in the same

Thoughts can be cruel tricksters Jokers and bandits They reside within me at times But they do not speak in my voice They snicker when I do not

"Be forgiving" I say to myself, in spite of my thoughts No one is as savage as they are Intruders, there is a "No Loitering" sign You can enter but you cannot stay

Why does our perception Of gender Change the tone In which we read someone's work?

My woman is stoic My man is soft spoken Anywhere I fall on the spectrum is loud Or terribly quiet

The church bell chimes Eleven and I count One, two, three, and on And then after the last The soft cooing of an owl Plays above the forest Echoing across the sky As if to outplay the bell To claim this simple land For itself as it sings Every one of us to sleep

I never owned you You lived a life beside me Our love was equal

She used to look out the window With eyes darting around Like the fluttering of birds Was the greatest joy she found And marvel at the rustling leaves Chirping and chittering sounds Enthralled by creatures great and Small that roam upon the ground

Hardly would she ever venture Out into that very wild land So safe behind that pane of glass So safe to let her world expand Sometimes we would sit by the door Glory under that sun so grand She lived a quietly sheltered life It was a choice I understand

The birds have flown South with our love Our passion fruit Fallen from trees Like the autumn leaves

And here we lay in The dark afternoon You are too angry And I am too tired To care that we expired

We turned back clocks Gaining an hour to Linger inside our Wind up toy romance Spinning its last dance

You say goodnight to me As though singing a song Against my earlobe Whispering a melodic prayer Beating against my eardrum The rhythm of your words A steady lullaby kiss Melting on my lips as you Fade with me into a dream