it is not your serene beauty,
nor your agility in kindness;
it is not your elegant dignity
nor the way in which you say, no
too quickly for me to protest.
what, then, is it, that makes me
want for you flower petals
under your feet: the Buddha’s own grace?
is it that i
am what you
endeavor to eradicate:
the souls lost to abandon,
for whom you so solemnly concern
your waking hours with?
i might go mad staring at walls,
the same as I would go mad
staring into the valley
behind your ears,
where lips are dragged out
from their slumber
to plant kisses
that will grow into songs
only you can hear.
i will go mad, with such geography between us.
i have before, when you wore other faces
haunting my dreams of what could be.
there is no penance for you to pay:
the crimes of attribution are not yours.
I assure you, I have spent lifetimes
repaying debts that were not mine.