The Birds Have Flown South With Our Love Our Passion Fruit Fallen From Trees Like The Autumn Leaves

Your lilted smile Put the tilt in my world I thank you for the seasons

Your sparkling mind Added the stars to my night Took wandering comets Gave them reasons

You spoke my name And my heart shifted The fire of my being gifted

You stayed a while Left your mark Engraved our passion The way we existed

One day we will wake up And we'll be older One will suddenly wake up Wondering why she feels colder One of us won't wake up at all A fallen soldier One day there will just be one of us A somber loner One day the second will wake up In a place the first will hold her One day we won't wake up We won't get older

Love and hate coexist together In one person A continuous fluctuation between Sympathy and disgust I want to ruin her I want to hold her head under water And watch her squirm

So I can drag her out Give her mouth to mouth Cradle her gasping body in my arms While I scream at her for being stupid Spitting and wiping my lips That were tainted from saving her

I hate her and I love her I hate to love her, never the opposite Never have I hated a person before And I have no reason to hate her More so I hate our transgressions I hate the wrongness we shared And the shame of it all

My hate is usually dulled to apathy The forgetting It absolves me, that forgetting It takes the two emotions and washes Them away I cannot feel one without the other

When I have swam too far And been lost in my emotion You have been the lighthouse That brought me out of the ocean

When I have flown too high Out of the atmosphere You have brought me back to earth And made me long to be here

I have never ran too far Or trekked alone in the snow The idea that I might miss you Has kept me safe you know

And when I have been too quiet When darkness filled my sky The image of your smiling face Has kept my guarded heart alive

This is not poetry It's just me Adding line breaks To a thought

I, who speaks often But says much of nothing I, who pictures the words That do not come out That stumble over My tongue and teeth My brain a stuttering Then silent and empty

I will my words into being In a moment's pause In the quiet of the writing When my mind races And I can catch my thoughts I send you my voice You, who reads me You, who's eyes Pass over my letters

I, who does not screech Like the hawk in the sky Nestle my meanings in The wanderings of creatures In the sun and the trees They, who speak The same language as me Who might interpret while I am just talking to you

I shut you out Because you saw the parts of me That were broken And ugly And I thought you would leave

So instead I loved people Who shut their eyes And stayed Always hoping I would change Something permanent in me

She asks me casually Why do I love you? And what sort of question is that?

I love you simply because I know no other way of being To not love you is not an option To not love you would be An emptiness my heart doesn't deserve

She asks again Why do I love you? Does she think I can find reasons?

I love you because I did once One time that is ever continuous One lifetime of love inside my body A body that is far from you still A body that holds me like I hold you

She asks once more Why do I love you? Did I not answer her question?

I love you because I want to My love for you is my greatest joy Without hope or fantasy or dreaming I love you because it is enriching I love you because it is necessary

December is the month In which I first read your words The month in which I first struggled to understand You, the first time I was Puzzled by your language Which made such little sense Still I devoured every Letter you wrote to me

A dozen Decembers later I still find myself lost By your accidentally strategic Wording, the way in which You hide bits of yourself In silly metaphors In carefree excitement In your strongest convictions

December is the month In which I knew the depths Of your emotions, your thoughts Before I knew your voice Before I knew your face or Your touch felt with skin Before I knew your name or story Before I knew I could break You as I myself was breaking

A dozen Decembers passed And we are both healing We are the steady stream of Lovers light, of rain rivers Flowing down the sides of the Mountains we've formed over So many years of crashing plates Stand with me at the peak In our breathless altitude

It is December again My favorite month, it's when You came into my life so Unexpectedly, like a night Blizzard, I awoke to an enchanted World, and with each new year As each holiday I have with you Passes, we have our history And our memories, we have a Bond that strengthens our Relationship, wild and tender

Even when you cannot taste Your favorite kind of tea It is still a soothing friend Tending to you in sickness Wrapping you up in its arms