Six Seasons Review #I Love You Better Than I Know How To Write Poems

'I Love You Better Than I Know How To Write Poems' was published in Six Seasons Review, November 2017 issue.


I love you better than I know how to write poems

I tried to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees

but I am not Neruda and when I speak

of morning suns and birds and the wind in the trees

it feels like I have marbles in my mouth

like I have three legs instead of two

the notes fall flat and tuneless and off scale like jarring clichés

but that is not the way I love you, the way I love you is not a cliché

I can think of beautiful poem endings

but no beginnings nor middles

every pore in my body has dried up longing for you

it has learnt how to ache patiently

but sometimes it forgets and it aches madly, desperately

and then I must learn to be still and more patient

I try to do with myself what spring does with the cherry trees

I love you because I know that I cannot live and not love you

I love you better than I know how to write poems

but I wanted this poem to be better than the way I love you

I could disappear and become only a voice

a voice that surrenders itself entirely to you.