Give me a list of your favorite words; burn all your best mixtapes for me. I want your shopping lists, the name of every kind of grocery you’ve bought at the store since age twelve. People ask me why I need these things; I tell them they’re all a part of you, they’re what inhabit your being and make you up like so many cells. If I could take every single letter and receipt and eyelash and fingernail from you, I would. They’re all tiny pieces of your self-portrait.
I once took a series of photographs of you when you weren’t watching. The camera was set on burst so that it captured every minute detail, every blink and shift of the planes of your face. Tell me you were the same person in all those poses. Make me believe it. I want you like gasoline, like burning roses and a heart full of shame.
I want to take you out to dinner. Allow me to order for the both of us, drunk on wine, drunk on light, drunk on you. Place your hand on my knee and we’ll go from there. But the truest thing I could ever tell you is that your eyes bore holes into me. I’ll never get used to it. So much light streams through me now that I’m unsure I am truly whole.
Wrap your arms around my spine like I’m a ladder and you’re falling off a cliff. I’ll save you from burning buildings; I’ll rescue you from the darkest depths of the ocean. I’ll be your life jacket, your ambulance, your altar to pray at.
In the lamplight of your skin I could die a thousand deaths and never once regret loving you.