Let Me List The Ways (Part II)

I love the way you nuzzle into my neck
Like you'd melt into me
If that were physically possible -
The way you lose yourself
In watching me
Trace the landscape of our hearts
Upon a piece of paper
That is so much more
Than just that.

I love your hands in my hair
As you stare longingly into my eyes
And at my face,
Like you're drinking it in.

I love how it feels like home
Lost in the ocean
In your eyes
And safe in your smile
And there's nowhere I'd rather go
Than deeper into your soul.

I love how pain and fear
And hurt and bitterness
Fall by the wayside
Like silly distractions
(Which they are,
If we're honest) -
How this love endures
And conquers,
Reaching out into the world
Making it dance
To a deeper tune.

I love how we find a sheltered cove
Overlooking a quiet bay
And cannot stare out
To the horizon,
Beautiful though the view is,
So caught up we are
In each other.

I love how the secret places
Where I'd never take anyone
Except one special person,
Seem made for you
And us
And our love.

I love the love-filled messages
You send me
After a night in which
You've set my heart aglow,
And how they'll steal away
My concentration,
So I get lost
In the beauty of your soul,
Your feelings,
Your words.

I love how you'll walk
And brave blisters,
Which always seem to dog us
(Like that horrid Akon song)
To enjoy a romantic stroll
I love how those hurts
Make something melt inside me
So I have to shower you
With kisses and caresses
And the abundant love
That keeps welling up in me.

I love how vulnerable I feel
When you look deep into my soul
And how I feel comfortable
To let myself be that way -
Naked before you.

I love singing to you
And hearing you sing back -
That sweet silky voice
That starts as a hum,
Hidden in your throat
And quietly, softly
Breaks out,
Moving quickly into my heart
And taking its place
Where it belongs.

I love how simple things
Like an innocuous menthol sweet
Or even just breathing
Can become so much more,
An object or an act
Of beauty
That we just seem to create
In the world around us
So that each becomes
An exultation
In you,
In us,
In our existence
As we breathe
You into my soul
And me into yours
And lose ourselves
In that moment
When we're so connected,
We're even breathing the same air.

I love how everything
Takes on a deeper meaning
How words like starlit
Become more than just an adjective
And how only we know
What they really mean.

I love how our conversations
Seep into the world
Changing existence in subtle ways,
Nudging stubborn maybes
Towards something brighter
And bigger
And whole.

I love that every so often,
A new name comes to my lips,
Like a tender kiss
Waiting to alight upon your own,
Because you mean so much,
That no one name is enough
To even come close to
Describing the beauty in you.

I love how you get lost
Even after you decided
To hold me at bay,
How we both find it's not half as easy
As it had seemed,
How this love of ours
Finds a way
To make its presence felt.

I love even the moments
When you hold back,
And how you always come back,
Like you just needed to wind down,
Your heart's been racing so,
And that even in those moments,
Although I can't be with you
And hold you
And kiss you
And melt into your arms,
Your voice says so clearly,
That you love me
Even if you can't act on it right now.

I love how it feels
Like the natural order of things
That I give everything I can to you,
That I need to pamper you and spoil you
And baby you -
Showering you with kisses
And hugs and foot rubs
And more -
Because that is what you are..
My Baby.

I love that even after seeing
The worst of each other,
We can look deep in each others' eyes
And see mirrored,
What each is feeling,
And say in simple words
That mean so much:
I love you.

There's So Much

There's so much beauty between us.
There are so many layers
To every single interaction
And sometimes, for days on end,
I could pick apart things we've done,

And things we have,
And find more underneath.
This feels infinite.

There's so much beauty between us.
There are sparks that fly
In directions
We've never had cause
To think of before -
Making my hair stand
And my skin tingle
And my eyes light up
As my brain overloads with joy.
This feels exquisite.

There's so much beauty between us
There are words,
That trickle through my consciousness
Like a slow
But relentless flood,
Tied to emotion
But not bound to its fate -
Expressions of everything
We'd like to be,
Expressions of everything
We long to have,
Expressions of everything
That we could
And are meant to
Be.
This feels special.

This feels unique.

This feels like love.

That's How They Know

Eyes brighten,
Heads move together,
Smiles widen
And lips glisten.
The talk is fast
And easy
And we're lost
In a breeze of conversation.
A whisper is spoken -
A flirtatious something,
A secret
They cannot know;
Or nothing,
Though they assume
It's not -
Our eyes light up so.
Our hearts are pounding,
To a common rhythm.
Our knees are weak
With the lightness in our feet
The world spins, in our heads,
Restlessness in our hands,
And fingers, and minds,
Every time we meet.

Numbers

Some numbers mean a lot
And some mean nothing much
And others merely represent
Abstract things and thoughts.

Some numbers are sweet
Like the two of us
Or the three servings of sauce
Or the eleven o'clock deadline
That keeps getting extended
Or the 6.30 - 7 a.m. wake up call
Or a single pink candle
Two days past its due date
For a new year, all our own.

Some numbers are hopeful
Like a hundred years
Of a beautiful love
That is and was and always will be
Meant to be.

Some numbers are cruel,
Like the ones that stop you from eating
Or the limits imposed upon us
To keep our hearts from beating.

Some numbers are fearful,
Like the hundred years
Until a future,
Although that's come down
To ninety-seven or maybe even ninety, now.

Some numbers are powerful
While others seek to control you
And these should be avoided
Or we'll lose you to forty two.

But all numbers -
Whether big or beautiful,
Whether small or scary
Whether high or hip of hairy -

All numbers are meaningless alone -
A set of squiggles without real form -
(As am I, if we're honest)
Without meaning and you

Let Me List The Ways

I love your mind,
I love its probing, questioning nature -
The way it picks apart
At all the little details,
And the grammar, and the spellings.
I love our anal arguments
About what's pronounced how
And why, and what it means.

I loved you
From the minute we first talked.
I loved the way your eyes lit up
At the words, 'I don't" -
A response to your probey question,
About reconciling reason and faith -
And the fires that burned in them
As we spent an hour,
That seemed so much less,
Talking, just talking,
Oblivious to the world.

I love your heartfelt messages
And emails and letters,
That you send all of a sudden
And ambush me with,
Kidnapping my heart and soul,
And taking off
For an imagined tryst
In a faraway forested glade.

I love your stumbles
And how you try
To walk only on the cracks
While I try only between them
And we bumble along,
Arms linked,
Lovers lost in their own world.

I love your intrepid fingers,
And how they trace the lines,
The corns on my own,
And how they poke,
In almost tickle-inducing ways,
At my pockets,
When we go exploring
The countryside by bike.

I love how you're contrary,
Sometimes, just to be contrary
And arbitrary, just because
And stubborn, though you rarely are,
And then, suddenly yielding,
Like a southwest-sauced fingertip,
Because you feel like it.

I love how my mind feels
After conversations with you,
Like I've drunk a potion
And everything is clear,
Like wisdom checks don't matter,
So bonused am I.
I love how geeky that sounds,
And how true too
Of what you do to me.

I love that through your fears,
No matter how scared you are,
You turn to me with love.
And when I'm scared,
And the shadows creep long and nimble,
You hold me
And love me to bits
Till the morning comes.

I love the way our eyes meet
Across the table,
Even when we're trying,
As try we must
Or we don't manage,
To be sociable -
So we don't weave ourselves
Into the comfortable cocoon
Of our conversations,
Of our love,
To the exclusion of all else.

I love the stolen moments,
When stuck in a group,
And feeling so un-groupy -
When we'd get away,
If we only could,
But can't
And make do with what we can.

I love your naggy girlfriend mode,
Even back when things were 'unofficial',
And how you force me to sleep
Despite my worst protests.
I love the constant indignation
At my need to refine and refine
And refine some more -
The way you push me to finish my work
And publish it,
Instead of letting it languish -
Unread and unloved by you -
A lost child in limbo.

I love your lips,
When they part,
And your smile shines through,
When they press against my own,
And send me flying across the universe,
Awash upon a sea of you.
I love the way one kiss
Leads to just one more,
And then just one quick one,
And then some -
The way we have to try so hard
Just to pull apart.

I love the way my head swims,
In a way it never has,
When you do more than kiss me.

I love how eight hours,
Or six-and-a-half, or seven,
Can disappear so quickly
In a breeze,
Of shared food and kisses,
And both in combination.

I love how natural
It feels to lose myself in you,
How I feel almost subsumed,
And still myself,
How I feel more like myself
Than I've ever done before,
How the image of the me I want
Becomes more real every day.

I love the exquisite taste
Of you upon my tongue
And the way I drift off
Into a surreal, gooey trance
With your arms wrapped around me
And mine around you -
Our lips and hearts pressed together
Like facing pages
In the most beautiful story ever written.

I love how words,
Even the most beautiful yet,
Are just not equal,
And never could be,
To the beauty of this thing we have.
I love how every time
I think I ought to finish this,
One more line, then one more verse,
Pops into my head,
Full of love and memory.

I love that I spent so many words
And lines, and ways,
Just to say a simple thing:
I love you.