fur eliza

(February 2022. For Eliza.)

this message is technicolor and more,
beat like beethoven

i speak to you from softer sands
than we stumbled in,
just a few miles away
from our desert affair
where we there
were a week in the sun
a heaven with a time limit
a saguaro’s pink blossom
come early

i dreamed i was climbing
a snowy mountain
like a tree—
i remember

waking up slow,
once cold now warm
in the sunny winter
desert morning
with skooliepalooza waking up
around us in the bus walking around
and we were still cuddled close
for warmth no longer needed
but wanted, and wanting you,
and feeling better than i could
imagine having you
sharing you sharing me
together for now total
without worries of windows

we were beautiful blissful
blue and gold our eyes
in one another

i had forgotten
how good it could be
to tumble into someone new
a night becoming morning together
to scrape yourself off someone
and feel new raw edges
technicolor and sharp
on our feet

i had forgotten
how good it could be
to make eye contact
again at a party
and get stuck,
leaving to stumble
under the newfound stars
dumbfounded
accidentally holding hands
and it is more than okay,
the joy of incipience
and vistas of possibility
contained in collision
with a body

i had forgotten
how good it could be
to feel safe
with someone
so fast,
to ask to take things slow
not because i don’t want
you but because i want
you and i need to catch my breath,
i want to know i can say no
so i can say yes,
to be given that space
pressureless as vacuum
only to fill you within an hour
because i could breathe
and i wanted to

i had forgotten
how good it could be
to discover a new body
and new ways of touching,
how healing it is to be touched,
how moral it is to make love
how loving it is to be selfish

i had forgotten
how good it could be
to be satisfied
every day or every other,
to feel no need to
push myself out
to meet someone new,
because i can stay in
and paint, and write,
and kiss, and share,
and talk, and be with
someone i really like
getting to know,
and know, and like knowing

i don’t want to be a desert monk
i want my arms to wake up full
you’ll be back in them one day
i’m not worried about it

if it was just a week it was
plenty of always
it’s probably more

if you were just beautiful in one way
i wouldn’t miss you as much

i had forgotten
how good it could be
to give attention to someone
with layers, someone in many ways
beautiful, an artist and a mind
and art beautiful like shadows
cast of you

you’re more princess
than i am used to,
but i admit i loved
being your crown
and giving you the kingdom
i’d come home to

a week is perfect
as a length for a lover
casual and deepening and
firsts and familiarity
and to not know whether or not
to say i love you
though we already do

i do not know when i’ll see you next
but i will, down the road

one day you’ll leave more marks on me,
more marks on my home

until then, i’ll close the door,
and the week could last forever
we’ll never have to see the day again
we sang after hours,
and though the day did indeed come
again, and pulled a continent apart,
i hope you know how always you are
to me, desert princess