LOVE LANGUAGE

How do I love thee? 

let me count the ways.

Forgive me for starting with Elizabeth Browning, 

And not my own inventions, my love

I fear that I have yet to own affection 

ye to tailor it to my gaze

I find it better to yield to those

who loved more deeply than I 

Those who now rest in shallow graves 

After all,

It was in dive bars

and suburban schoolyards

that I first learned the language of love 

Like a currency, 

I learned it was something to beg, to borrow, to steal

Something that though it resided on one’s tongue 

Was never yours to own.

That accent of impossibility still remains 

When I try to look at you, try to sing your praise 

What have I done, to be able to witness thee 

How long will it last before this dream goes back to sleep?

So I defer to Shakespeare, to Wilde, to Keats -

Someone once said if I loved you less I would talk about it more 

I find this to be true , but I find myself torn 

What is a love left unexpressed worth? 

It is this lack of loving expression that forged me in these wretched ways,

that fanned the flames of my childhood hearth 

What is a longing without a knowing audience to joyfully read between each breath?

What does it mean to care, but stay silent instead?

So I try to talk. As borrowed as my words may be.

Try to remember to words of my mother, replicate the easy warmth of her departing declarations 

Every time I too, find myself subject to a moment of intimate means 

I stutter, I fray, I mumble, I talk too loudly for the time of day 

But I sing with mankind the sounds of love, 

Mimic its surety, its steadfastness, its purity 

In hopes that I will one day become a native speaker 

In hopes that one day, I will look at you

And will aspire to invention 

Find a word or two just for you 

Something we can house in homes and hearts as ours, 

My own dialect for this loving life we lead.