Like an illness she came around Overwhelmed the senses And seeped into my bones Until they ached I tried to ward off the contagion With recommended vitamins and medieval remedies But the love doctor forgot to mention That the virus would duplicate at an exponential rate An onslaught of smitten affection at her every action And I quickly learned that the most terminal of diseases Is the product of Catching feelings

When she laughs, her smile slips between the spaces in my ribcage Tickles these old bones awake I spent so long coaxing them to apathy Persuading them to fortify this heart To grow strong and solid against an attack by eyes like hers Her guarded pupils teasing a trail to the unknown - paradise or peril A Siren song calling me toward white flags and ease She makes me gentle Makes want to touch her cheeks with delicate fingers Trace the memories in her laugh lines And the sadness that paints her veins blue She makes me careful Makes me want to press safety and home Into her hairline until it sings silver She makes me care Makes me want to abandon plans and doubts She makes me want to feel everything Like rain on the skin Fresh and bold and Alive

Oh, I’ve always been so cavalier, Never wanted to rock the boat, Or shake it up, Or be the one to start the domino chain, But I’d happily watch them fall and fall and Fall Oh, I never wanted more than this, Always felt at ease with status quos, And just-like-this, And yesterday’s coffee order, But I’d tell myself I’d change maybe tomorrow or tomorrow or Tomorrow Oh, I learned about days like today in school The beginning of tomorrow and the domino chain, America and France and China and Brazil and Egypt and – A spark, a catalyst, a moment Where it begins Oh, she looked at me, Her smile a tidal wave to test these waters I wasn’t prepared for change, But this uprising was a long time coming, Cinderella’s unexpected Midnight Oh, she cracked open this heart like the pages of a dusty history book, I built the blockade and called the brigade, But the gatekeeper on this soul was napping, And she strolled in during her evening walk, And lit the fuse and watched as it burned and burned and Burned Oh, I’m stuck on this wall between the head and the heart, And on one side is yesterday’s coffee order and the easy seas, And on the other side her finger poises precariously  Over the dynamite domino and she strikes the match, And I watch as the whole line of them begins to fall and fall and Fall Oh, watch as I begin to fall and fall and Fall

She has a map spread out on the dashboard, Even though we have GPS, And her finger traces the highway like a palm reader, “You are lost” “You are healing” “You will find what you’re looking for in seven hundred miles” – I live for the open road, the way it hugs the horizon gently, Like I could graph the asymptote of the sky, always moving closer but never quite touching it She kissed me as summer was opening its eyes, My entire body turned toward the sun, shaking off the dew that had collected overnight, I didn’t want the moment to end, but it was hard to breathe. I had never touched my lips to the beginning before, but I had dreamt of it, Like sinking into the pages of a novel I couldn’t quite relate to, But loved anyway Her thumb swipes over the skin of my forearm on the console between us. I always want to travel but I never want to go anywhere. I think I like the idea of not being here, but I hate the idea of leaving. There are so many places that made their home inside me, But so many more pieces of me left in places I won’t return. I’m afraid that she’s a place and I will leave all of me inside the roads on the map of her body, A moment in every artery and a memory in every vein. The lifeline of her palm is still calling to me from the gear shift where she’s grabbed my hand, And I swear it’s whispering like the setting of the sun “We still have a long way to go”

The night sky stretches as vast as my longing – I’ve felt it expand beneath my ribcage, The elastic drawing of a bowstring, Pulling until it snaps I keep wondering if I want to see her, But there are years between us that we’ll never get back, And I’m looking up at the stars right now, Thinking about cosmic significance and galactic fate, And how it all seems so unlikely – They are just stars, that’s all, Nothing more I have yearned for a time that has dustings of my fingerprints in and out of it, Something that I touched once but has now disappeared, And if I keep walking away, And you hear me saying something, Listen no closer – To the stars and the past and the longing and her and goodbye, I send whispered hallelujahs

I fell in love with Her in the time it took you To read this poem