for vivian

being breathless at your disposal is the first thing i remember of your skin. the soft tendrils come second. and the warmth of it third. your tongue is in my mouth and a six-letter name spinning in circles in my head. i want to know the softness of your hands as if they were mine. i want to know what laces you with thirst and desire when you’re with yourself. i want to know the story of your first guitar and the second, and every piece of music that ever brought peace-wrapped happiness to you.

i’m envious of everything your hand lingers on. the strings of your guitar or the keys you touch when you’re writing me an email. the steering wheel, your window pane, grains of rice and your grandmother’s palm. every place where it should have been me instead. every tongue that tasted yours before it made it’s way to me.

the world doesnt know enough about soiled skin like i do. how i quiver at the thought of you and tap my feet when you’re talking about your favorite band. how i sleep to the memory of how you say my name and wake up with the feeling of having helfd you throughout the night. the world doesn’t know enough about the rhapsodies i would write for you. how being grounded by your arms is the only thought that chases my conscience. how i would give up every memory of past inclinations, just to create new ones with you.

i’m a stranger to music and you know nothing about poetry. but i’ll find a cosmic middle ground to fit into your strings and melodies galore. if millay, auden and keats’ language slips past your grasp, i still hope my words find clarity in your seat of thought. i use big words to talk about the hurricane we are. but i’m blinded by thoughts of your hands to see the impending danger. how bad can the hurricane be, if it makes me feel human.how bad can the hurricane be, if it makes the ceiling still and stable?

i’m swimming to the bottom of my want and borrowing happiness from future visions. i’m hanging up shades of yellow and taking down the sea of pale grey. i’m stitching you as my future history and binding threads of my poetry around your name. they’re telling me the hurricane will leave me breathless. they don’t know i’m far gone already.

nibir/ and i’d give up forever to touch you