Niorum

Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you.

Embrace me, my silk and laceable you.

I’m in love with you, I am,

And thoroughly so.

And I Remember Every Kiss by Jens Lekman

But I swear I’ll kiss anyone

Who doesn’t burn me like the sun

But I will cherish every kiss

Like my first kiss

I like your messy hair

I like the clothes you wear

I like the way you sing

And when you dance with me

I don’t know why I love you

I just know I can’t stop thinking of you

Oh wait,

It’s ‘cause you make me smile

You always make me smile

All the clouds up in the sky

And the leaves up in the trees

All the broken bits that make you jump up

And grassy bits between

All of the matter in the world

That’s how much I like you

Maybe I Need You - Andrea Gibson

“The winter I told you I think icicles are magic
you stole an enormous icicle from a neighbors shingle
and gave it to me as a gift
I kept it in my freezer for seven months 
until the day I hurt my foot
I needed something to reduce the swelling
love isn’t always magic
sometimes its just melting
or its black and blue
where it hurts the most
last night I saw your ghost
pedaling a bicycle with a basket
towards a moon as full as my heavy head
and i wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket
like ET with my glowing heart glowing right through my chest 
and my glowing finger pointing in the direction of our home
two years ago I said I never want to write our break up poem
you built me a time capsule full of big league chew 
and promised to never burst my bubble
I loved you from our first date at the batting cages 
when I missed 23 balls in a row 
and you looked at me 
like I was a home run in the ninth inning of the world series 
now every time I hear the word love I think going going
the first week you were gone 
I kept seeing your hand wave goodbye 
like a windshield wiper in a flooding car
and the last real moment I believed the hurricane would let me out alive
yesterday i carved your name into the surface of an ice cube
then held it against my heart til it melted into my aching pores
today i cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door
and asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar
I told them I left my sweet tooth in your belly button
love isn’t always magic
but if I offered my life to the magician
if I told her to cut me in half
so tonight I could come to you whole
and ask for you back
would you listen
for this dark alley love song
for the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies
I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak
But I know now it doesn’t matter how well I say grace 
if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat
So this is my wheat field
you can have every acre love
this is my garden song
this is my fist fight
with that bitter frost
tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath
the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek
as i sang maybe i need you
off key
but in tune
maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea
maybe i didn’t even know i was here til i saw you holding me
give me one room to come home to
give me the palm of your hand
every strand of my hair is a kite string
and I have been blue in the face with your sky
crying a flood over iowa so you mother will wake to venice 
lover I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest
now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible
it is the one verse you can trust
so I’m putting all of my words in the collection plate
I am setting the table with bread and grace
my knees are bent
like the corner of a page
I am saving your place”