I Love You.
these three words kiss the back of my mouth,
pleading to get out, so that they might skip across to your ears.
my gums say no. not now, not ready. this boy who is already a man.
when they ask? whenwhenwhen?
my eyes look at him as i stroke his cheek,
so smooth, it is enough to stare at it and brush my lips across it,
yet i know my eyes wish to go further: to the top.
where sidebyside, there lie his eyes,
and to stare into them is to feel terrifyingly perfect:
it is as if you give me
the wisdom of the sage moulded in the innocence of the daisy
but to then turn to you, to look at you and say
I Love You. Love? i? You?
Yes.
I Love You.

now dissect each word, perhaps make a little incision down their bellies,
inspecting the void within those words.
the total absence of something,
thus making what i to you equate as nothing.
so why do these words feel so swollen with grandiose gestures?
i. love. you: monosyllables.

i am afraid of monosyllables?

perhaps, you could say these words to me first.
take your lips behind my ears
and drip them like treacle from your throat, to your mouth, to your lips
sending these pilgrims homeward bound:
allowing your words to sink beside my soul.
as if they'd never left,
fluttering into visibility,
like a Shakespearean soliloquy,
these words are my plays raison d’être
like the drunken trout brawling in the night to sex 'er
without you i feel bereft, cold.
and then i smile, remembering those three words
and the heat they carry inside them,
suddenly feeling absurd, like a worm in a pot of lemon curd
thinking thoughts of you is to open the door to colloquialisms'
and a billion clichés splintered into a trillion prisms,
hyperbole looks like a fading light
next to the exclamations exploding and imploding
inside my skin and away from your sight.
enough. i have bleated all night.
and so...and so...?
ah, yes. it is so.
Inside and outside in the up most delight
I Love You I Love You,
now darling,
Good Night.