never a larger divide than when I pull at your orbit
wrap your rings around me two sizes too small
do anything to make us fit like my dreams tell me
we are meant to.

I have fantasized about you in a million different ways.
I know exactly how we’d dance around each other
in the kitchen on slow sunday mornings, how many steps
it takes to cross the tiles and pull you into my arms– 3,
when I jump, and 4 bites of whatever I just cooked
that you can stomach.
how you’d laugh and say ‘keep working on it’
how I’d sigh, bow and posture ‘anything for you’
and it’s the joke delivered with the weight of a eulogy,
how final this feeling for you that I’d take it
to my grave. 

I’ve seen us in this lifetime, and as frogs,
glued to the same lilypad,
I’ve seen us as stars blinking twin beams onto earth,
how they called us constellation
permanent, without separation– I am ready to stitch myself
into your skin if that’s what it takes to make you stay.
    but I can’t love you like you’d want me to.
in the kitchen, I pull away when you lean in for the kiss,
in the bed, I wiggle out from your leg when it swings around me,
as a frog I would hop if your tongue sought more than flies:
‘anything for you’ as long as you keep your hands where
I can see them, as long as your gaze stays warm as starlight
without catching fire. 

I have fantasized about you in a million different ways
and none in a manner I can keep you in
not when I fall short of lover
and cannot be contained by friend.
every breath, every ducked head, every shattered moment
missed phone call, text sent two-sentences too long
    all my effort to be everything–
I’m running in circles around your head
trying to beat a path inside with my certain feet
    I love you I love you I love you 
why can’t it be as simple as you love me too?