The Poet in Every Man

She loves to curl into a ball beside me and play her fingers with my hair. The act reminds me of a cat I once owned, nestling beside me through the afternoon, meowing and purring endlessly. She has the habit of sinking in me. A white feather so young and pure, but instead of floating for its lightness, it sinks in me. The heart she owns, the beauty she wears — they all do, like a shipwreck. She likes twisting her hair into curls, like staircases of underground cellars. I love it when the wind blows in her direction and her hair sweeps across her face. It’s like watching the leaves of a tree rustle and wave with a thousand green hands. All she is is beauty, but…

I am afraid of her in a way that I couldn’t possibly describe completely.

You see, she pulls someone inside of me. Not something, but someone. She brushes my lips with hers and I could feel my skin change into a stranger. A stranger who I know very well. He’s well tucked-in under my shirttails, but whenever I am with her, I could feel him using my skin and becoming me. When I think about her, he borrows my soul and tugs a notebook to write on. I watch as he scribbles words my heart had been telling me about her. I am mute and yet, he is me, speaking and writing the flowers she picked carefully for me. He plants them for my sake and they scatter, the roots digging in between my eyelids. He writes letters. Thousands of them, in fact. They are all for love, for her… everything of her. The poet smiles and says, “I am you.”

Then I realize, the poet lurks in my heart.