i do not think love is possession,
but i crave so badly to belong,
and to belong to someone,
in this world that undoes me
with its constant weighing,
in its endless choosing between,
as if i could ever know best, or enough,
when i have never been-

and i do not think me incomplete,
but i want so badly to be full,
and to give and receive fullness,
in this life that only takes
until there is nothing left but
empty hands, hands that do not,
cannot stay empty but instead reach
and hold and choose always to-

and i do not think, but i crave and i want,
and this world gives and receives,
and these empty hands belong to someone,
and this life undoes me, taking
until there is nothing,
always empty but for love,
who knows best,
choosing incomplete,
endlessly reaching-

and i think, enough. enough.

my lover calls me her sweet girl,
says she has never met anyone 
so sweet in her whole life,
and i know she means it.
know she thinks of me
like cotton candy,
spun sugar made delicate
and fragile and fleeting.
carefully she pulls me apart
with her fingertips,
and for one delicious moment
i am undone,
dangling in anticipation
before melting in her mouth
until nothing is left of me
but an aftertaste, cloying,
a sickly stickiness
lingering on her tongue.

in my dreams
a new lover calls me honey,
names me for my sweetness
and knows it will last,
and still licks traces of me
from the corners of her lips.
still she savors each taste,
deliberate in her devotion,
and i am not carefully undone
but instead thoroughly devoured,
like honeysuckle petals
pulled apart for nectar,
delicious and abundant
and perennial.

this new lover calls me honey,
and i do not know if it
makes her a honeybee, queen
of my honeycombed home,
but i think it means that we
will never go hungry.
that this saccharine love
will never spoil.

in my dreams 
my new lover calls me honey,
lets me kiss it from her mouth
into memory before waking.

i have spent a lifetime making my love small enough to hold,
but what happens when the want is too big for my hands only?
when it overflows from the curve of my cupped palms
and spills past these desperate fingertips, wasted?
for so long i have measured out my loves and wants in doses,
taking sips like cold medicine rationed in wartime
against the terrible yearning violence of my heart.
when i now link hands with you, dearest, it is to keep you close,
but you must also realize that when we join together,
when my jagged edges seal themselves like greedy lips to yours,
it is to finally glory in the luxury of unrestrained love.
it is to dive into a pool of need and want and you
and come up gasping for air, surrounded on all sides.
how precious then to hold your hands and be held in them,
to share a large, dripping love and still want more,
to look, lonely, only to find you already within me
feasting alongside my ravenous, hungry heart.

once, while my mother is working as a substitute teacher, 
she asks me to visit an elementary school class.
their teacher has arranged several guest appearances
for the final day of their poetry unit, and to my relief,
i am neither the first nor the last guest.
i read my poems. i answer their questions.
i do not remember the specifics of either because later,
as i am sitting in a chair that is only barely too small
and listening to their poems, an alarm goes off.
the kids hush as the air rushes from the room,
and for just a moment, you can hear
everyone’s heart drop, even over the sirens,
until the teacher, i can’t remember her name now,
she says into the ear piercing silence
class, it’s okay, it’s just a drill
and with a dramatic rush of air,
the kids take a breath and burst into motion,
pressing backs to the wall, the one with the door
but still furthest from the window.
lights snapped off, blinds drawn, lock clicked shut,
the teacher reminds everyone to be silent, to be still,
to sit head down, arms crossed for as long as it takes.
i am still seated in the too small chair, now against the wall
next to my mother and a ten year old girl, 
and in the pulsating dimness between them,
i try not to imagine that the slow steps
of administrators in the hallway are anything else.
i try not to think about which body i would cover
if those approaching footsteps were not just a part of the drill
but a nightmare made all too often into these children’s reality.
i still cannot remember the teacher’s name or which poems i read,
but i do remember going home after, ears ringing with sirens,
with imaginary shots fired, with my own heartbeat pounding,
with a moment of silence in a classroom full of children,
somehow sounding the loudest of them all.