While you are the collection,
the narrative stays here,
always close to our skin,
no one gets to know
the rest of the story, lover

Of how every cell in my body
sang like a fevered secret
that I'll always carry with me,
you could never know this.

Because there was so much held back
that could've bloomed between the pauses,
the words and countless moments
that I wasn't able to give you.

Through a current carrying us,
there was some unseen fiber
slowly coming apart,
it had to be slow, this undoing.

In this version of the story
I can tell you what I need to
and absolutely nothing more,
no metaphors or signals hidden....

I should have held you during
our last storm together,
each flash in the dark
could have drawn me closer.

Like the rhythmic strobes pulsing
in the sky and all around us
were really beacons sent to
make us remember the home
we found in the other's embrace.

I should have gently placed your ear
upon my chest and let you linger there
the night we first made love together,
right in that fragile time when
we're still between two entire worlds,
where everything is amplified
and raw to the very touch.

You would've known my heart
so much better then, lover,
the beating within that
slow drum would've made music,
the sadness and hurt inside its song
would be a note never forgotten again.

I shouldn't have walked you
to your car later that night,
for the life of me,
I can't remember why
you even left in the first place

Our shoes left fresh prints
in the dampened soft earth,
the storm had already passed,
the ghostly mist evaporating
and breaking apart as it surrounded us.

I should have said something important,
instead of making small talk even though
I'm at my most inarticulate then.

I could have said that every cell
in my body sang in a way that
should never be kept as a secret,
more like a pact we made when
at our most natural and vulnerable.

Such a simple intimate gesture
would have been even more personal
than the way bodies lock together,
left us naked in ways that joined flesh
can barely ever begin to mimic,
much less hold or understand.

You would've known the spectrum
of my heart so much better then.

Because that's when we held nothing back,
the places you needed to be touched,
truly touched and not pawed or coveted,
the broken segments in me that you saw
through my eyes like glowing filaments

All of them were collections
of some larger narrative,
the telling is one of the only ways
I can still keep you with me, lover.

Through a current that carried us
there was something you sensed,
those warm hands cupped my face,
like the shape of a fresh tear,
and although it was unspoken,
you never touched anyone
before or after like that.

In every version of the story,
I begin to say your name softly,
the sound may have been
enough to make you stay.

The sound may have sang
through your every cell
to begin a whole new narrative,
a collection of everything
I should have been able to give you.

But, in this version of the story,
I can only tell you what I need to
and absolutely nothing more.