Seventeen Seconds: A Love Story

I wrote these poems in 2014-2015 and organized them to tell a story. Let me know what you think!

1.

I would know you
like the moon
knows the stars,
unwrapped
from Her words
so our souls
could touch skin.
Listen.
There is no wrong or right here.

2.

the stars in my psyche
match stars in her eyes,
together we blend grow our wings
and we rise.

3.

color
melt rivers
all drip
on my heart.
red, green, risque;
i move into her way.

enraptured,
i’m captured
in lines
of her smile,
in words
on her breath,
in her touch,
in her style.

her colors
paint through me,
my psyche is stained,
already she owns me,
my heart is detained.

that color
a gateway
to all that we’ve known;

the moment i met her
i knew i was home.


4.

autumn gold in
charcoal skies, 
rings of light in
yellow eyes.


5. 

I’ve never known a love like ours;
You are my sun, my moon, my stars.
You kiss me and I taste the sea,
Within your love, my soul is free.

Whole galaxies await us now;
Come set the sails and point the bow.
We’ll take off for infinity,
Our fingers clasped, just you and me.


6.

I remember the sun-shadows flicker that day,
my eyes keeping beat to keep feelings at bay.

I remember her smile, man-- the way that it stained--
without her consent I decided: I’m claimed.

I remember pumpkins, the petals, the moon,
and sailing the ocean for one afternoon.

I remember shivers run all up my spine,
her breath on my heart as she said she was mine. 

I remember then and forever and now,
all lifetimes coalesced despite knowing quite how.

I remember futures that are and will be,
two souls interwoven as infinity.

I remember love with roots far beneath surface,
and branches so strong, evolution the purpose.

I remember color the night that we tripped,
connection on levels that left my soul stripped.

I remember back to the second we met,
that soul became butterflies caught in her net.

I remember warmth every morning we wake,
her smile is my light-house, her love my escape.


7.

This is not something
Fashioned, built from convenience;
Real love is messy. 
Every color bleeds
From the fissures of the soul, 
Raw with emotion;
There’s no hiding here.


8.

I have said before:
She is my home. Paradise
Opens in her smile.


9.

In the space between
Your heartbeats -- between each breath --
My soul curls up warm.


10.

The daybreak is cold;
Brittle bones drained of summer
Crack wide for your love. 


11.

excuse me, I’m not sure what’s real,
seems I’ve forgotten how to feel...


12.

Still,
this distance seems fake:
wedged there
where no oxygen 
can reach it.
At night I kiss your lips
In a different dimension, but
in the morning
your body is
gone.
I wake up stained red
And still
this distance
seems fake.


13.

My lips still taste
your smile,
Skin pricked with the codes
from your fingertips...


14.

the path to heaven
leads through hell,
(the ancient stories too foretell).

i’m glad to feel the pain i’ve caused,
to finally have taken pause.


15.

forgive the chaos i might bring:
this love too deep 
all coiled to spring.


16.

I want to show you show you
show you
that I’ve changed that
I can love you that 
our pieces are glass
but the edges
fit so good.
let me show you
show the edges
show all sharp and raw
and beautiful and
this mosaic of
four hands
and twenty fingers and
the heat
the glass
the gold 
i can show you 
the heat
two souls
four eyes
let me show you.


17.

here: this place can be 
our hideaway. we’ll make paradise,
paint it true in the new dimension with
four lines and a screen and
some galaxies in our eyes-- 

with doors in our eyes 
open doors 
open bodies.

we built a world with three words,
with three sounds and
a promise, but
taste the way we’re quiet now.

hear our words uncoil slow tongues
from our fingertips;
see the way we move
between the stars.

© V 2015