San Antonio Review

Yesterday was many years unlived
I spent too introverted
in mental plagues and fast pleasures;
little did I feel the summer breeze
and yet it blew through my clothes
as did many coffees down my throat
and ticks of clock through my heartbeats,
I may have kissed and forgot;
treated hugs pettily;
I would love now to adore presently:
love in effect and all within the context -
less in my mind and more of my eyes on you;
nose breathing in every cloud of coffee beans;
ears at every utterance of your mind and heart
and my fingers sensing every inch
that yours covered over min
eat every time you held my hand.

I've been at war for a while now
wailing and waving white flag,
wading through white deserts,
wasting away gradually,
craving truce to allow space for a warm heart.

I've conditioned self to cope with the cold,
comforting sores with coals
and brazen conduct . . .
to the loss of self

My descent to the present is recent
that it's just now I sensed an incense
that has always been in my atmosphere

I am after a confrontation with my fears
and tears tended to compassionately.

It's as though I have to solve
through the current state of affairs
to have more than just a fleeting feeling;
it's not into love that I fell
at first sight or over a coffee table;
only just curiosity —
all encounters with you
accounting for an image of you,
though you've bridged through my threshold of attraction,
stuck at an extent
that maybe time will extend
and prove me false
that I did factually skip a pulse
when you held my hand.