Textures

It’s always the heat, and the tongue, and the dizzying passions of the young
— That’s how the books and movies teach you about falling in love 
— With the music, in the rain, heart wrenching declarations full of pain.

But catching onto splintered skin from chapped lips and digging into fleshy hips
That spill away till you grasp the shape of bone with your sticky squeaky 
Fingers — that, the words do no justice in teaching you how love feels. 

The gnashing of teeth and then apology, they do not teach. That there is a 
Taste, like drinking from a stranger’s bottle, to the smile you press against your own
— This distinctly human taste that makes you hunger, they do not warn against.

That fingers tremble, not imperceptibly, as you hold the face speckled with
Scars and small craters you brush beneath your thumb — nothing can teach you
About the fear that rattles in the tin can heart to say what you mean.

There is no shiver without the shocking bloom of goosebumps where your breath  
Skims — fluent as a squirrel streaking across the lawn — you watch in awe
— Reminders that humans are creatures of touch and we learn with our hands.

Love stories have stripped us into hairless globes of sculptures that sparkle
When we fall in love, but you are full of fingerprints and textures — that’s the trouble
— For treasures need to be explored, never left to be boring or cool as marble.