"Longing At Least Is Constant"

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This came today.
Finally.

My reactions (for what they're worth) are below.


*~*~*~*~*


I want you to come today,
words murmured while
fishing
for my keys,
as if the pages
could be the person,
as if
I could have any say in that,
anyway.


*~*~*~*~*


I wrote a story
once
about a public school librarian
who gets off
fondling
the Encyclopedia Britanica.
(She had fantasies about
reading dirty stories
to the English teacher
down the hall who - clearly - must have shared her
love of literature)


Today is a bit like that.


The envelope is waiting
for me
Slim and padded, inside
the book is still shrink-wrapped,
Your name on the cover.
I brush it against my cheek,
foolishly wanting
to catch the scent (unknown) of you.
As if it might linger,
ten years on,
in pages
you
never touched.


*~*~*~*~*


Her words
ache
like an old bone
healed over but
never quite set.


*~*~*~*~*


My heart slams against my ribs
Not pounding,
Only too big, suddenly, to be contained

talk to me again

I'm aching for your voice
(long distance, and only imagined,
a letter or a spoken word)

But all I have is this:
One, slim volume, of not quite
sixty poems.
The only words I have.

"Vow" made my heart swell.

"Pairs" made me cry.


*~*~*~*~*


"The grass is always greener,"
you said,
taking a drag.
The corner of your mouth cocks,
ruefully.

Am I crazy for wanting you here?

You who I never knew,
Yet feel (a little) like I know.

Familiar longing - but I'm making you up,
Bi-girl, femme-girl, writer-girl,
Girl.
Match-stick arms and combat boots,
A short dress and a sharp eye.

And me?

I am suddenly fifteen again, squealing over your
Cute Tomboy Dyke Version of Sexy
as if you were all five of the backstreet boys,
rolled into one.

I am an amourous zombie, hungry for
braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains,
And falling for everything else in the process.

I am all too familiar with this hunger in my heart,
the need to know more, learn more, see more, hear more,
more, more, more, more!
the need to devour you.
Whole.


*~*~*~*~*


I want you
In the fair-trade coffee shop,
sitting across from me,
thinking out loud.

I want you
also
in my living room,
sitting in my lap,
legs spread,
inarticulate,
but still
out loud.


*~*~*~*~*


Not quite sixty poems,
Not quite sixty tiny slivers of your heart,
here in my hands.

(Thank you
For the sharing)

I read them,
hungrily,
Gulping, slurping,
swallowing,
Can't get enough of what you have to say.
Press my nose to the crease,
Breathe the scent of paper,
Only paper
And still
I murmur to you
as if you could hear me,
As if I had any right
to act as if you know me
or want to hear what I think.


*~*~*~*~*


I want to sleep
with this book
against my skin.


*~*~*~*~*


So there you go.
Crushed out on an acadyke left-wing poet/activist/slut who I've never met, and yet who has walked so many of the streets that I know. Both literal and figurative. :-)