I Wanted To Write You A Poem

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted to write you a page full of verses. I wanted to show you the alliteration of our souls and how since I’ve loved you I feel like I’ve met myself. I wanted to tell you that I didn’t realize I was on autopilot until your soul t-boned mine at an intersection and boom. I didn’t realize I wasn’t smiling as often until I saw yours, directed at me.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted to tell you my eyes had met yours on many occasions. I had always admired your beauty and the light you radiated. Which isn’t to say there were no feelings before recently, there was definitely a flick. Microscopic at most. You were the flint and I was the steel and I think the universe was just waiting for the right conditions to start that fire. I think the whole universe conspired to put us in the same room together that night. Me with my tequila, you with your smile and made it all make sense and then fire.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted a whole sonnet that described the look of the sky and the look in your eyes as we sat drunk on a futon smoking and talking about life, well, that was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever felt. I want you to know the feel of that soggy futon was the most comfortable I’d felt in a long time. I wished there was a way to let you feel what I felt when we were laying in that bed talking about our lives and how we had spoken many times before that moment but I feel as if that was the first time I heard your voice. I needed you to know that the first time your lips crashed into mine it felt like a face full of cold water at 5 am. Wanted you to know that this all happening on 11/11 made perfect sense. You were the wish I didn’t realize I had been praying for. I didn’t even realize I was praying.

I wanted to write you a poem.

But I couldn’t find the right words that rhymed perfectly with the color of your eyes and the way that that first night of this caesura was the breath I didn’t know I needed to take but I’m happy I did. I wasn’t really breathing. I was unaware I was turning blue in the face. I wanted you to know that I had been so burned and bruised and when I met you all that pain lifted away, wanted you to know that my blood had felt poisoned and you were the antibodies my body just didn’t seem to want to make itself. I wanted you to know I truly thought I was healed until I met you and realized I wasn’t.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted you to read something so warm and happy that you could feel the heat that radiated from my soul the first time we went out together. I wanted a line to describe how I had already checked our zodiac compatibility. That what you thought was lust in my eyes was something a little stronger than that, but neither of us would realize that till later. That when I heard you sing karaoke for the first time, I knew I never wanted to hear another voice singing from my shower again. I wanted to tell you Adele never sounded so beautiful till I heard her songs coming out of your mouth.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted to tell you that I had accepted loneliness long before you arrived and had my whole life planned. I wanted you to feel the rhythm of my words telling you how when you showed up you were not what I wanted but everything I needed. You needed to hear that I never saw this coming. Normally when I fall in love I know it the moment my eyes set on someone, but my eyes had seen yours so many times. I didn’t see this coming.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted to tell you how I had never met anyone with walls higher than my own and emotions impossible to read. I needed you to see that I found that so beautiful. I wanted you to know it drove me insane. I wanted to tell you how that night you followed me outside of the bar while I was crying to my best friend I almost told you I loved you. I wanted to use stanzas to explain how I was so afraid because I could tell my love was leaking out despite my best efforts to cram it back in, and how I knew you would know because you can read me like an open book. But you’re a flighty little thing and I didn’t want you to soar away. I couldn’t watch that.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted to show you how our time officially together is the length of a haiku but the most beautiful one I’ve ever read. I wanted you to see that me falling head first into this was the scariest leap I’ve ever taken but I decided early on if this was going to hurt me, I’d let it.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted you to know that I knew I’d like you around forever when you saw me staring at a big beautiful house with lots of windows and drove off course so we could look at them all. I wanted to tell you that when I picture what heaven looks like it’s you and I driving through a fancy neighborhood looking at people’s porches while RENT plays through the radio.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted to have quick words that rolled off my tongue that proved wrong your thought that you could ever possibly love me more. I don’t believe a human on this earth has ever loved another human the way I love you. Needed you to know I love you so much I could physically feel it in my chest.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted to let you know that when you first said you loved me my heart fell into my stomach and rocketed back up into my throat and I felt like I was going to barf, but in a good way, I promise. I wanted you to know that I never thought much about the word promise and what it meant until the day I told you I’d never leave and you said, “Promise?”. And at that moment I’ve never wanted anything to be truer than that. Ever.

I wanted to write you a poem.

I wanted to make a point that when you said I’d get sick of you it couldn’t have been further from the truth. I wanted you to realize that I would take a million imperfect days with you over a million perfect days with anyone else. I wanted you to know that sick or dark you is still more perfect to me than all the other souls I’ve tried to give my heart to, and sick and dark you shows me more love than I know what to do with.

So, I wanted to write you a poem.

About your eyes and hips and heart and voice. I can’t think of any words to rhyme with the words that describe all the things that make you. I don’t think any arrangement of words would do justice to the love I have for you, or the love you’ve made me feel for myself. So, I wanted to write you a poem, but this is all I’ve got for now.