Can I bind these words together with the finest filament of my hair? Can I set
the spine with the viscosity of my affection? Can I wrap
this humble offering in egg-shell, and earth, so that on their way to you, new things, green things, might sprout up in between each whispered word? Can I etch
the destination across my rib cage, right there, where the wound you gave me almost bled out? Can I slice
it open, press you inside, sew it back up with gorse and spidersilk?
Hold my breath so you can’t escape?
Can I tear myself down to only skin, steal into the forest under cover of night? Launch myself from the tallest canopy? Can I hang,
suspended on the wind, clamber into the undercarriage, nestle myself between blades of the whirring motors? Fall asleep, head resting against the lull of this strong, steady machine? Feel the hundred tonnes of thrust cradled beneath me? Can I throw
my entire self into the welcome embrace of the ocean? Can I cleave
my way, breathless, across the seas? Can I scale
the mountains erected defiantly between us? Fight, bare-knuckled, the beasts that live at altitude? Can I crush
their venomous, bottom-dwelling brothers beneath my heel? Can I harness
the finest desert stallion? Ride him, bare-backed and broken, into the city, against the wind?
Can I climb the trellis of your castle, slip in, silently through the window of your room? Can I curl myself around your sleeping body, weave my limbs and yours into a divine tangle, rest my head in your neck’s crook? Can I bury
myself beneath you, absorb myself into your sweat and skin? Can I burrow
deep into your teeth’s enamel, stretch myself along the slant of your nose? Can I wrap your thinning hair around me, shrink into the hollow of your clavicles? Navigate the tunnels of your bloodline from heart to wrist? Can I find
my home in the juncture of the veins that gather there? Dissolve myself into the lifeblood, disappear into that glorious red?
Or can I just send you some of my poems instead?
Commentary: This piece started in spanish, but I didn't have the confidence to continue it, so it shifted into English. It's only partly in earnest, it is also me making fun of myself for not knowing how to do or feel things by half, especially when it comes to love of any kind. I am quite proud of this poem, so I might take it down for editing and submitting at some later stage. I'm also in two minds about including it in my poetry collection, as it fits the first chapter's theme quite nicely.
