to say i love you

once upon an empty world
you existed

you existed and i set my eye on you
because you glowed with a magic
renounced to all in
brown-eyed, sleek-haired glory

i loved you.

i loved you for your uncanny ability to
charm an audience with your
wayward smiles like fleeting glances
and your spark of candle light alone
in darkened chambers
drew me irresistibly to the warmth of your glow

i waited.

i waited, for what else was there to do
when you could stop my heart
in its beaten rocky tracks
and work a magic over crumbled promises
split down the middle and returned

i languished.

i languished in the agony of your beauty
and a softness you withheld from me
or i was yet too cowardly to reach out and
caress for myself
so you lost yourself in my
unsaid words and i waited
for your hunger to leap aside

i lusted.

i lusted after lowercase feelings of despair
despite your untapped warnings
of a love dangled before my
red-rimmed eyes on rose bush thorns
like the petals of blood red and inky black
i placed on your bare skin for safekeeping

i wondered.

i wondered if my desire and your
devotion were enough to keep us
floating through these rocky seas
and untamed winds
that blew your hair across your face
in sandy ringlets

i longed.

i longed to catch your coral lips in mine
and taste the salty oceans that once
served as a metaphor to our
amazement that a grip on reality this tenuous
could have held on for so long without snapping
it or us
breaking easily in the long fall down

i weep.

i weep over a tear-stained grace
i once possessed that i believe you could have
loved the way i can't remove you from my
thoughts, a thorn in ancient coral reefs
thrown far by passing boats and memories

i regret.

i regret the day i didn't
sweep you up into my arms and
kiss your neck and confess your
likeness to a place i used to call
serenity now filled only with
hoof-prints and grassy pastures

i need.