If I Were a Love Poet

I want to guide your hands over my arms

In hopes your fingerprints would wipe the scars

From the surface of my Mars.

I would find your eyes as the sun shining

On my planet.

See, they sparkle more than any other stars I’ve seen,

So I think you’re more than qualified for the job

Of lighting up other people’s world.

I’m not much of a love poet but if I were I’d write about

How your touch softens every rough edge 

That wraps around me, as if I had blades

Sticking out of my arms like they did

Two years ago.

When I met you, I swear to God I met God and I

Got down on my knees to worship you, until

I realized I’m not religious and all I have to

Wish on are shooting stars and dandelions,

And I swear if your eyelashes don’t answer every

Prayer ever asked then I don’t know what does.

I’m not really a love poet

But if I were I’d write about how you are my

Favorite song; a secret high only I hear for

Three minutes and twenty six seconds.

I’ll put you on repeat until I get sick of you,

Which is to say:

I will never get sick of you.

If I were a love poet I think I’d write about

The way I’m asthmatic but around you

I can breathe;

My lungs are permanently scarred but

If we inhale the same air then every

Summer of endless smoke

Was worth it.

I learned to ride a bike from my neighbor and

Not my Dad; I’d cry when I scraped my knees

But as long as you’ve walked on the same

Planet that holds the asphalt my blood

Touched;

The blood that I guess isn’t in my veins anymore but honestly

I don’t care.

It was my blood and your

World and to be in your world I feel like a peasant that

God decided to make love with out of

Pity because of some sort of

Fucked up deer symbolism that good

Poets might write about but I

Won’t because I don’t need to be

A great poet to explain how it feels to be in your

Universe.

I told you I’m not much of a love poet

But if I wanted to write about how the ocean

Tides return each time or

The sun rises each morning or how

Crows can recognize faces or how

There’s that one kind of jellyfish that 

Just kind of rebirths itself

Or how the planets always orbit the sun

And each day comes just once a year or how

Living feels worth it;

I’d write about you.