Curiosity Is Not Always Dangerous It's Not Killed This Cat

It's in the way you tuck your hair Behind your ear In the way you speak your words Soft and clear In how you make yourself feel close Like you are here The way you navigate the world And hold your fears

It's in the way you tilt your head In photographs The way you light up when you're glad Your sneaky laugh It's how you say what's in your heart And don't hold back How you are strong and hold your own But don't attack

It's in the way your forge your path No compromise When you let me walk with you I get butterflies I love to see which way you go Every surprise Love is in the way you dream Watching the skies

Love is how you've looked at me With kindest eyes Love is when you hold my hand And don't patronize How you've been vulnerable with me Not afraid to cry It's how we let each other breathe Without cutting ties

Sitting on the curb The cement was warm And cracked Like the lines In our palms

Do you ever smell a flower And know that it's my favorite?

I put my hands In my sweatshirt pockets Like you might hold them

Have you ever looked toward the horizon And seen me looking back?

I could have laid down In the middle of the street And melted away Into oblivion With a smile on my lips

You were there Maybe you didn't know You weren't aware

But was it fair Of me to ask you if you knew That you were there

To come back unannounced Just in the air around you

Well I was there When a storm came crashing down And soaked your hair

I was unprepared So startled when I woke From that nightmare

To find your hand on my heart Starting to repair

When it's dark And it's too quiet It all feels like too much to bear

But then you're there Even when I worry That you don't care

You know I worry too much Maybe it wears you down

And when I don't declare My presence Still I think you know

You knew I wasn't going anywhere Because you still know me

Next time we're there Let's go back to the meadow Where we put flowers in our hair

The people walking past Won't see us Sitting in our chairs

I said your name You turned your head It was just a whisper in the air

You knew it wasn't just the weather You can't see the wind

That's how I know That all this time you've known That I was there

The little spider Under my table Strung up a pebble To anchor its web And I am as curious As I am impressed By this mysterious Feat of engineering

I would like to be no one A nameless, faceless, Shapeless form To walk through life Unknown Lost in the norm

Everything I do will blend Into the scenery, The earth, unheard And I, no one, am but a wisp, My life Never occurred

When I have gone in whisper Give me an Unmarked stone Or better yet, nothing No one was here I, thankfully, was alone

I am always drawn to water It is not my sign But I am in love with Cancer Her fluid emotions And I feel her in the Unfurling of waves

I swim in her like A brush mixing paint Like cream poured in coffee Or ink dripped on a page I am flowing Completely immersed in her

She takes me to an island Under her planet moon Soaking in the night Fierce as Diana She will rise up and Snatch me down into the sea

I watch the spider Weaving fresh webbing Because spiders don't Have five day forecasts This spider doesn't know How soon it will rain That all its hard work Will have been in vain

The wolf spider Accepts the advances Of her strongest suitor Knowing as she snatches And savors her final meal Soon her plump body Will feed her children Dozens of her a copy

I watch the spiders My eight legged allies I see them hatch Love them living here Knowing in a year Or much sooner I will Find them delicately Crumpled on the ground Lifeless and so still

The light and dark Tides of my life Swelled simultaneously

Waves that lifted me Battered me In their shore break

In my euphoria I waded Through so much pain

And the two have never Separated In their continuum

We are so entwined I don't know which love is yours Or which kiss is mine

I can't wish you happy birthday Because we are ghosts now Ghosts who do not linger On the same plane of existence

How abruptly we became memories While our lives were still Flourishing and so full How quickly the two of us vanished

I send you messages into the void Into the echo chamber of my heart Bouncing around in the dark I miss you, miss you, miss you

Sometimes I think I can see you Your face unchanged and wild But you are a wild dream That ripples away at my touch

Can you feel me reaching out Now that we live only in my mind? So many years since you disappeared The two of us remain only in me