Artist: Emerson Ruffin; Notebook 2017
with our bodies let us write stories
let every climax be without ending
let my legs spread across the page while my hair flows off of it
let us share the spotlight
two protagonists in this bodily affair
let us float on the clouds of heaven
or the gray skies
I want it to rain on our house
let me rain in your mouth
in the now
body to body
the grip of our hands reminiscent
of the exposition
that first page
we shook hands
greeted while the unknown danced between our lifelines
but our gazes
saw the spoiler of an eternity
wrapped into each other in cursive curves
and roller-coaster bends
our love is conflict finding its way
even after resolution but
look
how we solve it
my soft skin
intertwined with what makes your man
rough
the mess we make
a run on sentence
that doesn’t get cleaned up
no breaths or pauses needed
just persistence
words we mouth to no end
the sentences you craft using tongue and hands
the mess we make
larger than paragraphs
for you
I lay bare
an unbarred temple
more naked than I’ve ever been
