A Prophesy

Your gaze lingers a beat too long.

That’s all it took.

After months of denial,

edgy laughs,

lying to myself,

clutching my fist around my waking heart every time it wanted to beat,

pretending I didn’t see your sideways glances

during those wee morning hours

when everything is in limbo,

where all the rules are whispering to be broken

fleeing uphill from the precipice that I knew

was as inevitable as my next breath

stubbornly trying to beat destiny

just to prove a point

that I am above my human desires.

All that hard work

and in several seconds,

you blew through gates that I thought might be unhackable.

I have suddenly faltered.

Oh god no, oh god,

I can’t look away.

I am falling, falling, drowning

in that soft look you wear for me.

The one that now has fire simmering

in the molten brown.

I know what you want, and fuck,

I am throbbing all over.

God, it hurts to look at you like this,

it hurts for every millisecond

that I’m not in your arms already.

Those perfect sinful lips

calling out to me

like a siren’s song.

You are heaven and earth in one.

You are a desert oasis

and eternal, lazy summer.

You are Saturday mornings in bed

and the stars screaming I love you.

I am aching to stumble into you

like a drunk staggering through the front door

after the bar,

at last.

Like a lover finally coming home from war.

Like a broken, life-haggard crone,

falling to her knees

before the altar.