unknown

the unknown is a secret
you can’t tell it
you can’t coax it out with words
or make it answer questions
you ask

i want to be with you
to slide quietly through fate’s fingers like warm butter
smiling together
tasting yellow joy on our skin and hands

to hold each other at night
like we know forever’s use-by-date
and laugh at time
and the wind outside

the unknown will make me yours
as surely as it will send you south
while my heart flies east
and carries a photo or two of your eyes

i remember the faith required to fall in love
the wounds freshly healed

and still, i want to be with you

milking sweet salt from our lips
the feeling that we know nothing
the unknown dazzling with nowhere to be
but here

vanity

in a t-shirt, in heels, in pigtails
i am all properly dressed
for you to messy me up again

but vanity is a luxury for those with better contacts
networking their way through hairdressers and mascara
with unbroken nails
while i use eye cream and glue to merely hold it together

i do not always see so clearly
and cannot bottle the looks that you give me

your itinerant eye
toils adoringly through toasty nights and hours of skin
skirts and white cotton socks

i fear you will lean to the next all too soon

not securely fastened to your side
i worry about slipping
when you are presented with shinier lips and thighs
or a newer piece packaged just right
faultless where i falter, clear where i am green

everything

i won you by default
(oh if only such things could be won)
yet you stand out of reach still
a grey-ribboned first place

you say i should pursue something new
like you cannot feel me rubbing on you
hungry for mere flakes
for whatever falls

i thought i could keep a secret
but telling you everything comes far too easily