to tell you how I love you

I call myself a poet,

yet I cannot capture 

how I feel for you in words.

I would have to dance for you,

but I am not a dancer.

If I danced, I would sit on the floor

my knees pulled into my chest 

with my arms wrapped around them,

opening my left elbow to the floor,

my ribs, then hips following.

I would roll once and stare at the sky

with my arms to my side.

My pelvis would rise and then fall,

my arms fold inward then out again.

Pushing against my elbows 

I'd raise my back off the ground

curl as I sit up

then twist towards the front, 

Standing, twirling

faster and faster.

My hair lifted in the wind

my arms free

my legs spinning 

as fast as they could go

a spinning top,

a merry-go-round of existence.

I'd fall to the floor again,

My heart pounding.

Using both hands 

I'd pull apart my ribcage.

First, the skin 

then the flesh 

then the bone,

Exposing to you my beating heart 

red

blue

a maroon muscle.

A child cries.

No one claps for me.

To tell you how I love you, I'd have 

to paint you a painting, 

but I am not a painter.

I prepare the colors:

a bright red

more blue than orange.

A lions yellow

the brightest color

in the piece.

Royal Blue

Navy

A teal as spacious as the sky.

Purple to go under the gray

with a yellow, a dull, dirt yellow.

Black,

because I must

I'd pull these colors into my arms

I'd grab them all,

hands reaching elbow deep into 

the buckets of paint.

Trying to hold them,

my forearms pressed against 

my bare breasts and belly, 

catching them,

catching the colors

As they spill down.

Of course, 

I cannot.

Colors don't hold.

They drip across my navel,

follow the V of my topography 

down my legs.

As I try to scoop them back 

up into my arms

they blur together.

Panicked, I'd fling

whatever I can onto a canvas.

I'm flustered, disappointed

by my horribly inadequate

attempt.

The canvas is splattered, scattered.

My body covered

I'd lie a towel on the ground 

to press myself against.

The colors of you,

the silhouette of me.

Do you understand? 

Do you understand what I mean?

Tell you how I love you, I'd write you a song, 

but I'm not a musician.

Next week I'd enroll at the conservatory.

Over the next five years I'd learn piano 

violin 

percussion.

I pick back up the flute that

I detested playing in school.

Every time I purse my lips 

against the mouthpiece of that 

dreaded flute 

I think of you and blow.

My fingers ache from practice,

yet day after day I practice 

morning to night.

In a decade

I'd  take what I have learned,

write song after song.

Some sweet and soft,

full of tenderness,

others bold,

punctuated with the sound of a gong,

the feeling

of meeting you,

that you were real. 

That you were real.

The violins come in as gently

as the spirits you whisper to

who whisper back to only you.

The flute,

full of love, of longing, 

glazes over the top,

Weaving through the air.

By this time you are gone,

but it doesn't matter.

I'd play these songs for years

in subway stations,

on small stages.

I'd play them on sidewalks.

I'd play them in the heart of forests 

where no one can hear.

To tell you how I love you

I'd spend years sequestered

because I knew

I'd never find the words

to capture

the fullness

the richness

the softness

this ineffable

yet resilient

tenderness.

There has never been a calling

more important,

less urgent,

or more fantastic than this.