the well and the wisher

You’re back again, and I’ve forgotten 

everything I’ve learned in your 

absence.


I give you my knees, my thighs, my hands,


and you take them because you think I know better now.


This is the problem.


I disappear inside of you and make 


you fish me back out when it’s all over.


I rename myself Lonely so that when


you come along, I forget what it means.


This is the problem.


I don’t know how to keep myself


when you’re around.


I don’t know how to let love inside and follow after it.


I don’t know how to keep the keys.


So if I ever tell you that I still haven’t
figured out how to kiss like I’m not 


giving something away, don’t laugh. 


Don’t tell me I’m being dramatic or 

that my poet is showing.


I am an empty bed for you, do you understand? 


I am a vacant hand, open and silent and begging.


I am a broken record that will only

sing your name 


and it isn’t pretty, 


the way I give myself, my magic away  like it is nothing.


It isn’t pretty at all