This is a short collection of poems, written during the time I first reconnected with the man who became my husband. Each title is the date the poem was written, and the collection serves as a timeline for the beginning of our romantic relationship.
2/26
You are kerosene
I am the sparking match
I thought I'd let the flame burn out
But it returned
Red as autumn
The moment you walked into that smoky bar.
I think I fell for you that first night,
You asked for a cigarette
And lit it so coolly
I couldn't stop staring at your mouth
Reading signs in the wisps of smoke
Curling from the upturned corners.
Memories seem so cinematic,
The seedy lighting and your backlit halo
Casting a look of innocence you simply don't deserve.
I got drunk on the scent of your jacket
And the heat of your touch as you corrected my aim at pool
I couldn't focus on anything but your breath on my shoulder.
I had no idea then how things would turn out
And the way you smiled at me--
I was right back in sophomore Genetics class
Fumbling with my hands and words just
To end up settling for artless silence,
Thinking of the perfect turn of phrase two hours later.
But my world is different now
We exist together like we have never lived apart
And even though you scare me, and I think you're too wild to tame and I'm too broken to fix, all I want in that moment is you. And in the next moment, and in this one still.
Because the moment you said you loved me
I was reborn from the ashes into your religion.
3/23
The bar was so small it seemed unreal
A leftover movie set downtown
Where all types but our own go to congregate
We laughed and played pool anyway
Whiskey-fueled with our band of misfits.
We led the pack out onto the hazy street
The air was thick with mist tinted
streetlamp yellow
The silence shattered by a cacophony of laughter and shouted questions.
I don't remember what was said-
Just our answers, called out in perfect unison as our shadow moved,
One strangely fluid unit
Against the wall of a crumbling building downtown while we went arm in arm into the night.
You turned to smile just as I did,
One a mirror image of the other
and time slowed to a crawl.
My heart set fire to my chest when
you said you'd fallen more in love
I felt it too, burning there beneath the hollow of my throat.
4/16
Since I've known you
I had to learn
To every light there is a dark,
One never existing without the other
You and I are photo negatives,
Backward mirror images
The same, but not quite
and you complete me in a way
I never knew I needed
We are equal and opposite forces
Unmovable when we inevitably collide
You just push right back against me until everything implodes
On nights like that
You taste of fireball
And I'm drunk on cheap whiskey
I want to run red lights with you and
Ruin our lives in all sorts of new ways
I don't even recognize myself with you
The world has been dark and hazy
since your love has struck me nearly blind
And deaf
And dumb to all the things that mattered before
But that tenderness that rises in my chest when I see your beat up Chevy
almost makes up for the secrets you spill into me,
so heavy I can hardly raise my head to meet your smile
God knows I'm not perfect
And now you know it too
But it will never change the fact
that I would forsake all else in life
to sleep curled up next to you.