handfuls of air

I want to be moved by you,

but I fear I'm frozen in place.

You're falling for me, but

what if I don't catch you;

what if I watch you break,

unmoved, like some shocked onlooker?

You receive me in you, but

do I receive you in me?

Can I find a bridge between us,

cross, and burn it behind me?

Have I seen too much, shivering

in the winter of my passion?

My body knows the rules, it keeps the score.

It remembers the first time it felt these things

and the cold shock of their departure.

I can't disappoint you; you're too kind,

but I see my patterns emerging,

I see the restless wheel turning,

I see a red dawn.

When will you push me away? I'm waiting.

When will you see through the image you've drawn,

the paper-thin schoolboy sketch of me?

Have you seen me, have you seen underneath?

What do I do with this power,

to feel that I have you.

Every time, your vulnerability

strikes me like a warm breeze.

Oh, god, that's so sweet, so sweet.

When you say you love me, what do I feel?

Fear disguised as emptiness.

Excuses not to surrender.

If I can convince myself I don't feel it, I can escape

the warm world of commitment,

that future of enmeshment in your mind:

frozen thoughts to me, someone else's dream.

How sure do I need to be?

I love you, you say, like it's easy.

My reply is stillborn; a premature imitation.

Can I age like this, standing alone in this wilderness,

harsh winds eroding me into what?

Through sheets of snow, I see a threshold.

Have I crossed it before or is this new?

Have I circumnavigated love to the start,

and do I have the strength to circle again?

I think you'll have to sneak

like some arctic fox into my life

and pounce.