My poetry is rarely

honest, but

all the feelings that hide among my words like

dandelions in the garden

are as real and raw as

mother's milk,

and that is the way that it has

always been.



He did not

inspire poetry

in me.



But even those who did inspired only

fiction,

beautiful lies that read like

honey dripping off a spoon.



But you

are different.



For you I want to be

as honest as I can, because for you

I want to be the best

that I have ever been because

you are more

real

than anyone or

anything or

any time or place that has ever existed since

the very beginning,

when all that was real were the stars

and whatever was holding them

together.



So, I will do for you

something that I have never done

before-

I will tell

the truth.



And if no truth exists,

(as I often suspect that there is no

such thing, because

I live

with one foot here,

on this earth

and one foot

somewhere else;

each world as truthful as the other but

simultaneously incongruent)

then I will tell you what I like to call

my truth,

because my reality is all that I can know,

and my truths are inseparable and

indiscriminate and

merged like two trees

that did not sprout from the same seed

but now are fused so tightly by the bark

that to cut one away would

leave the other ravaged and

incomplete.



Here, then, are my truths-



last night you turned me

inside out

and saw what I was made of,

and when you put me back together

all the pieces fit better than they had

before.



Last night you set me on fire and

watched as I burned so bright

that even the stars were jealous.



Last night I realized

I've been waiting for so long

that I had begun to doubt

that there was anything worth

waiting for, until

you said you felt it,

too.



Last night you rocked me until

I heard the ocean and

my skin was made of

poprocks

where we touched.



Last night I learned that you can meet someone and realize

that you have known them all their life, and that

there is no such thing as

unbelievable.



Last night I learned that you have

polka dot underpants and

that you like to play

Led Zeppelin.



Last night I learned that people love you because

you care more

for others

more than what they think of you.



Last night I learned that

there is still so much

I want to learn-



I want to know what scares you most,

I want to know if you like your coffee with

one sugar or two,

I want to be able to tell you

where every one of your freckles are

with my eyes closed.



Last night I learned that

whatever holds the stars together

must live in people too, and that

it tastes a lot

like love.