Strawberry Pound Cake
2021-07-18

***

I want a love that's easy,
that's light, that requires
no rationalization,
no purgation
of words,
no listing of boons to be heard.
I yearn
to see your face, and when I do,
I want to feel boom in the ocean
of my chest,
*She is the only one.
She is the only moon
in this starry sky.*

For there are so many other women
I could try
to get together with,
a wink, flirt,
accidental compliment blurt-
ed out in the checkout aisle.
But I cannot help but see,
having been burned
so many times, a list of benefits to me
instead of each walking ash-hewn corpse.

But all these pages are empty,
notebook spine unbound.
I don't want a political alliance.
I want a woman, raspy, hoarse
with trembling lungs,
every breath the sound
of the crashing ocean waves.
I want a woman who comes undone
under my touch
not because of my deeds,
not because of my works,
but because it would take
a mountain's worth
of effort to restrain
her brain's reward system
going wild as an ape.

Eris built me
to be
a solitary
creature,
and yet I find
we've developed a dependence
on each other.
It's the simple truth:
*I like me when I'm with you.*

***

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander