9/30/11

Giving
By Cara Neel


What I want to give you is not happiness

It is not the bleached light of summer,

Not the pale whispered promises

Nor the delicate petals of a rose

I do not want to love you softly.



What I want to give you is the salt of tears on your tongue

Cupped water in your hands when you swim at night

I want to give you the tang of crushed violets

And a pounding heart as we lay together

Watching the stars fall from the sky.



I want us not to exist in the slight dance

Of brushed hands and grazed lips

But for our bodies to be so close

That all distance would cease

And our skin would forget the prickle of loneliness

So that we would know only each other,

The world a vast, far-off entity, separate from us.


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Cara Neel is a university student, aspiring music journalist, poet and possibilian.