We were talking about poetry,
one winter afternoon,
the sky the same hue as your eyes,
but with the darkness of mine.
You told me, “All poetry is about
sex, God, or death.”
I teased you,
“How could you forget about love?”

You’ve entranced
and transfixed me, my love.
You’re all my poetry
ever talks about.
So let me attempt to learn
from the masters,
I’ll try my hand
at the other topics
that consumed them.

But how can I write about sex
and not write about you?
In my head
there is a map
of your body
and a winding path
that my lips and hands
long to follow.
Your body is a fire
and I’m desperate to burn.

But how can I write about God
and not write about you?
I touch your hand like
I’m turning the pages of a holy book,
but I love you with the fierceness
of a sinner turned devout,
I love you like you’re my last chance
at paradise.
I love you because we know the ugliest
parts of each other,
but we still choose forgiveness
every single day.
Your love is the bookmark I forgot
about from the chapter in my
childhood when I believed
without reservations.
You are the miracle who taught the
atheist to have faith.

But how can I write about death
and not write about you?
If death had come for me
before my lips had brushed yours,
I would have surely walked the earth
as a ghost, unable to move on
because if I have a purpose, a calling,
it must be to love you with
every fragile cell
of my mortal body.
And someday you will die,
and I do not know if I
will still be around to see it,
but of this I am certain:
the earth
will rumble
and rupture
and crack itself open
in its grief,
and the seas will wish
they could drown themselves,
and maybe the sun
will even blow herself out
because how could she
bear to shine
if you were not around to see it?