You have 6 tattoos.
Full lips. Good, strong hands.
You have 7 freckles on your back,
they map out the big dipper.

You have a scar on your left arm
you carved in high school.
The first time you pulled off your t shirt
I traced the line with my fingers and fell in love
with your strength.

You are a hero
for living from that moment
to this one. You never need to apologize
for how you chose to survive

Your body is a map I know every inch of
and if anyone else
were to kiss me, all they would taste
is your name.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder.
Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

But I would never kiss anyone who doesn’t burn me like the sun.