86.

River smell.
I miss your shape and form
when you evaporate.
I can see you
dancing spirals on the outskirts
of my vision, but you shimmer
like heat on pavement,
mirage-sweet and desert-warm.
Tell me why you cannot follow me.
Tell me why you leave me when I walk away.
I am drunk because you
feed yourself to me.
I pray for more.

You are the concrete smell after a storm
and the earth when it is swollen.
You are the electricity of lightning
and the life inside of me.
I would not survive if you constructed
a wall of glass between our fingers.
I would lack the truth, the sway of you.
I would dissolve.


Bring you back and I will breathe
again. I can write the slope of your nose
and the curve of your ankle and
the free that your neck feels
when I press my fingers into it.
Stay. And I will give you a reason to
stay. I will be your life force and your electricity,
and the lightning and the storm of your life.
I will be the swollen earth and the drunk perfume
and the wholeness of you.
I will love you
until I cannot breathe.
I swear.