keep

there’s an eyelash permanently stuck to your right cheek it seems & i want to drag my lips across your skin & take it away. instead, i keep the secret & don’t tell you it’s there so i can keep staring. this image of you is mine to keep & to keep me awake at night while i fumble over the meaning. i would never ruin something so precious. i know better, i keep my hands to myself & the thoughts but sometimes you catch me off guard. does it live in you too? do you keep this too but my proclamations make you tuck them in? i should have spoken more softly. you uproot me but ground me like a green thumb moving me from pot to garden. how do i offer you a plot & not my whole garden when you appear with a single sunflower, roots still dragging? you are sunshine on tree leaves, my reflection just barely visible, like in an upside down spoon or a warbling puddle. windshield wipers, i want to hold your hand. i want to breathe your brown sugar, keep you safe, keep you sweet. keep. how possessive i am, how greedy, gratuitous. i am gracious too. thankful for your company. i keep thinking our feet could touch under the table. our knees could kiss. we could—we could sleep. apart. our own beds. but whisper down the lane, down train tracks, down exhaust pipes. exhaustion is silly but it is exhausting to hold, to keep, to breathe in petrol. gaseous. keepsake. forsaken, forbidden. maybe not quite but not easily given. & i’d be new with you. none of my skills are transferable. switch the roles, the light, the card. two of cups. no, king of pentacles. so back to business i guess. keep em coming. the jameson, the ginger, the lime. regular ice. i won’t show you my teeth. i’m too docile now. i cannot keep on keeping.