Spoken

Can’t help falling for your words
their quickening, rhythmic
can’t-catch-my-breath, like the beating rain
outside
they drum and drum and drum against me
calling forth my heartbeat
my fears and unnameable emotions, tugging hesitation
is woven into the way you speak

It’s so good –but it’s not real
you speak not to me, but to your own beloved,
your own fears and hopes and ideals
You do not see me
you see only the world and speak its colors
to the world
But I also hear your words and I fall for their lilt, their precision
though they are not for me
you speak to many others yet they call to me and I fall too
they are others’ truths
half-lies

but don’t stop spinning words into intricacies
I see drawn in your speech things I want to see more
heartbreaking, tantalizing, dreaming, concrete
verbal chains of meanings
drawing me in, but still they are not quite real
vibrantly textured and alluring
fabricated, crafted with care
in that balance of anger and desperate hope

where do you find that shade by which I am transfixed?
as you speak your measured, trimmed, memorized
art