The Cat Waltz

Because I know what it is to touch you

Underneath a street light on top of your roof

I shaped us into a waltz

One, two, three strokes, I’m out

Like the days of Christmas broken into quarters

I threw at you like you were a street busker

Just begging me to listen.

Because I know distance tinctures my lungs

Shaping air into crosses from which I’ll hang my shame.

The twelve sorry’s I’ll give before the ten promises say I’m too wrong

I will fold my heart into the ocean,

And follow you until the moon cuts like a scythe in the night

And with it, you’ll cut me apart.

Because I am a sucker for pain, and I know how to be wrong

I want you to break me to pieces.

I want to feel your fingers as they pull me into a tree

Cut me into a fence; bury my feet into the inner city suburbia.

I could never promise you

To dance as cats under the screeching of car alarms

Our silver bells ringing like a symphony we could never re-hear

And set the sky alight with the fire of birds.

Because all that I give is hollow, I gave you the space between stars

When all you asked was for the space between fingers

A distance I couldn’t close.

So you turned me into a wolf until the day

I forgot your name was something other than the taste of

Salt, the feel of snow, the sap of pines, the moon I

Sung my praises to each month, until I lost you.

Because I am a minor chord, trying so hard to be joy

I broke like a string and rebounded across your hands

Leaving welts where I should have left love

And of the twelve sorry’s, I’m down to the one

That I have here in the space between eyes and chin, hoping to spit it out

From behind these broken teeth, knowing that it’s just another thing to

Break, and unlike the vase, you won’t take the blame.