To the boy teaching me how to love,
I know I do not speak the words I write down enough
and for this I am sorry –
it is easier to bleed onto a page than onto a person.
But if one day you choose to enter my mind
and read the poetry spilling out of me
please be cautious
I do not have control over how the sentences form
or how the ideas twist together,
the words just are as I just am.
And they flow without reason or fear, they are
a heartbeat for a girl with a broken heart.
To the boy teaching me how to love,
In you I see Cummings, Poe, Plath and Williams
and all the dead poets who whisper ideas in
my ears at night, you are my muse.
A kiss from you will never be just a kiss for
someone like me
it will be stardust and magic and nectar.
A touch is not merely a touch. It is a caress or an embrace
or a collision and if we
slow dance at midnight I will remember
how the moonlight illuminates your skin
and how the whiskey tastes on your tongue,
I will not forget this feeling
even if you do.
To the boy teaching me how to love,
Most poets die drunk,
alone,
and so beautiful they cannot even comprehend
their loveliness.
I guess we become the things we write about
after all, and I don’t think I am an exception.
When we are broken we
shatter like glass and it hurts
to put ourselves back together, so sometimes
we just don’t. I haven’t been able
to pick up all the fragments yet, instead I am
finding new ones.
And you are watching, waiting,
and letting me fix myself.
Thank you.
One day I will be so full of light that
together we will set the world on fire.
To the boy teaching me how to love,
Do not give up on me yet.
When you arrived I wanted to give you
everything I had – my whole heart.
But I left so much of myself in others
that I only had mismatched bits and pieces
to offer you,
If I had known you were coming
I would have saved them all
but I did not and I know the leftovers
are not nearly enough but
I am rebuilding.
I am not as hollow as I once was
All other voices are whispers and yours
a thunderstorm,
you have shown colour to a girl who only saw
in shades of grey.
To the boy teaching me how to love,
I carry your heart with me
wherever I am and wherever I go.
I don’t want realism with you,
I want magic. You are not just a boy to me anymore,
you are starting to become my home –
my stars and my moon
and every night I write to you.
Love often arrives too early
on my doorstep
and too late at another’s but this time I think
the timing is right and for once in my life,
I don’t want to run away.
In your palms and fingertips and deep in your soul are
all the poems I want to write and I am not
finished yet –
I’m not sure I ever will be.
You are my Heathcliff, my Darcy,
I am mine before I am anyone else’s but
whatever souls are made of,
his and mine are the same.
To the boy teaching me how to love,
This loving has never been an art of mine
as it has been for you but I will drown oceans
I will make gold out of the dirt I have been left in
I will grow and change and evolve into
a woman who is strong enough
to move mountains.
And I want you with me through it all
You have left your scent on my hair,
my clothes, my sheets and my heart;
These words ache for you
and only you.
To the boy teaching me how to love,
I know it is not easy to hold on to
a girl dressed in mist who
writes letters to you in secret,
but I know I will soon
be able to love you the way you love me
and we will have a love worth writing about.