I Loved You Once I Gave It Out Freely Even Generously But You Did Not Want Love

I just want my cat to lie on my chest Smother my fears with his weight Trap me under his sleeping sprawl You can never move the sleeping cat

I want his body to cover my face I want to forget the world exists Cat fur and light snoring is all there is And purring, which can cure anything

Without reading any of my written words Is it possible to truly know me? Mind musings, soul serenades This feels like the only accurate, undiluted Version of my being

If you've never met my body Maybe you know me better than most Or maybe to know me is reading both Poetry being the translation of my body language Into my mother tongue

So I'll lay my words down delicately, intentionally Hoping you see them A dialect spoken just between us Yes, you would know me I think you could know me entirely this way

I'm both a brother And a sister A chameleon A shapeshifter I was the man I thought you wanted And woman again When you missed her

I've been handsome I've been gorgeous And being both Has been euphoric I've been everything All at once I am both malleable And formless

My voice is soft Fluid and cozy My body smooth And warm and homey When I speak to you I hope you hear My soul is steady And you know me

I was assigned fire at birth Or so the star mappers say And I can identify with that With the colors, the heat Fire is a passion, yes, I am that

Water I've always envisioned As quiet, calm, serene But I met water as a flash flood There were never any warnings

I swam without being doused How is that possible? But it's something I've never Known since, water is wet after all

I can relate to earth, to air In fact, these elements speak to me More than fire or water have So I've belonged to both of them

Fire and water though How steamy we were together You'd think we would have clashed But we were purple, complementary

Time is the only element I've been seen with these days Water, at the end of it all My body consists mostly of you Which is really quite an apt metaphor

The light and dark Tides of my life Swelled simultaneously

Waves that lifted me Battered me In their shore break

In my euphoria I waded Through so much pain

And the two have never Separated In their continuum

The snow fell on the earth Drew its blanket over the ground It brought with it the cold bite And I felt it all around

Winter sang its song of sleep As it darkened the skies But who sings for those animals Who never reopen their eyes?

Frost colored my hands Despite the fire in my heart I mourned in my blues and blacks Watching the life depart

An ember in my hand Is a small and safe delight It burns of course Palm scarred for life Leave your imprint on me, fire

But place it in the earth And it will tear its way through Scorch the ground and then The trees until there's nothing Left but a smoldering oblivion

As a lover of fire As someone made of flames For this destruction I have only this tearful apology Lost in the blackest smoke

The little spider Under my table Strung up a pebble To anchor its web And I am as curious As I am impressed By this mysterious Feat of engineering

I felt alone in my skin No, worse so I was a hostage inside myself Choking on a growing body Suffocating in adolescence

My pretty hair was like rope Tying me to a chair Shackled, cuffed I wore a constricting costume That was too hot and sweaty

And I was stuck there Because my flesh Could not be pulled off Up over my head, yet My bones were aching to breathe

I would tilt the earth For snow drops and witch hazel For rare hints of color Bright against a white landscape

I would give up leaves For bare frosted branches I would banish the sun To see night in the afternoon

I would never swim again To skate across a frozen pond I would tear out July and August To have a calendar of Decembers

Give me a window that speaks That howls the names of blizzards I would tilt the earth To see cardinals shine in snow