For Andrew

Let me turn this bedroom into an ancient temple

where I will peel back the callouses

of your cynicism, pain, and insecurity

and let the god within you burst forth

like the unfolding of a lotus–

the birth of a galaxy

in which every star is a moment

that you smiled

and my heart stopped.

What if you believed in divinity?

That it is inside you

and in me.

Maybe then when we are lying on this bed

your lips pressed against mine

we would melt

like wax–

one into the other

unable to discern whether it is your eyes

or mine

that this world looks so rosy through.

– Or whether we were ever truly separate beings.

I want your eyes to flash like solar flares

every time I walk into the room

rather than being turned around in a circle

by your hands

that plastic ballerina in the music-box

pirouetting before your half-lidded, unchanging eyes.

I want to be something that you must achieve

through years of pious contemplation

like nirvana–

a blissful union of Shiva and Shakti

constantly seeking to become one

and desperate to forget they were ever torn asunder.

I want to hold the most fragile piece of your heart.

The one that you keep locked up in a glass box

on that shelf that I

just

can't

reach.

Because it is too dangerous to expose

and too delicate to play with.

I will pluck it down– like the apple of knowledge–

wear it around my neck

like a locket.

Wait until everyone has left the ballroom

the lamps are fading down

there is only you and I in this circle of light

And open it.

2/18/12