The air is warm and gives color
to dead branches, ashen, disintegrating leaves,
and flattened yellow grasses.
Hear me?
The air is warm and gives color!
What a lovely thought to one so gray and shadowy as I.
For here you found me.
In the middle of a mortuary, meditating away my days
while life was out there waiting to be lived!
I, post-mortem man, was loath to take the bait
and take a leap of faith and make a great escape – but wait!
Not even loathsome, for to feel even hate requires
the unsteady flow of blood in veins.
Those veins had been sucked dry.
Would that I could pinpoint just the vampire who did this—
But what if I told you it was I?
That merely by my own contempt and apathetic life
I strangled my heart and mind and left my skin to cry.
I heard a voice say softly, “Wipe your eyes.”
My future could have scarcely looked more bleak.
Then I fell for you a year ago this week.
I count your voice a drop of blood.
It soothed my desiccated body, tantalized the veins
and hair-trigger membranes, left my soul and body screaming
“I WANT MORE!”
Still I remained as empty as before.
But you were never one to kiss and run—
You fed me blood in forms I’d previous not known,
your slightest nervous tic or grandest overture,
they equally brought life into my weary veins.
My heart for generations had been numb,
but in a beat I felt the beat and knew those days were done,
I’m older now, I smell the roses, my life has just begun.
I opened up my eyes, but they were eyes anew,
and I realized that my resurrected body wasn’t mine at all—
there was no me at all, there was only you!
I felt dizzy as the blood rushed to my face.
I sat up, and pushed my corpse away.
And ever since you’re all that I can see.
I fell for you a year ago this week.
Up, up, away, into the open air! A grand majestic flight on love and prayer!
Carving holes into my skin with each flash of despair,
but filling them with water when you’re there!
You’ve built in me a thousand wells, and I drink when in need
then re-see, re-fill, re-drink, repeat.
I’ve learned many things from you in a year,
and the person I am today could not exist without its greatest teacher.
I feel so much, it hurts but it feels amazing because I’m feeling!
Hear me?
I’m feeling! The anesthetic that lurked beneath my surfaces
was useless in the face of your face and my observances
of your conduct. Like you conduct the strings in my heart,
electricity to start the spark I felt emerge inside
before I felt my arms and legs ignite and drive me wild
trying to end up at your side!
My advance at first was slightly tongue-in-cheek.
I fell for you a year ago this week.
You were always miles ahead.
I ran the race in spurts at first, short sprints would get me close
but I ultimately fell behind.
And when I fell, I fell. It was all I could do just to get out of bed.
You could have left me for dead.
But you took my hand to help me up again—
Your kindness covered a multitude of sins!
You were closest to me in those moments, and as I learned to run
with fervor and grace, as you had run your whole life,
the lows got less low, but the highs no less high.
Joy divine! What I’d give for a moment of your time!
A pint of blood or devotion for a lifetime.
You are my lifeline. If I let you go I will be swept into the ocean in no time.
But there’s no time for such thoughts.
Only days and years to look upon what you gave me,
see the changes you’ve made and the forms you take,
appreciate the mystery of your very face,
my favorite among all people, small and great!
As I reflect upon a year, I thank God that you’re still here.
Our story was a long shot, but David’s slingshot fit my hand—
Giants will fall, no mountain will stand!
I’m far from courageous, but there’s ink on our pages,
And I’m going nowhere far from where you are.
Our story isn’t over yet, I think.
I fell for you a year ago this week.
