Skate Blades on Ice

Skate blades on ice,
a night full of snowflakes.
We're lost for a moment in
the piles of white winter,
in the flurry of movement from the vast
sky above us.

I feel small.
It's a good small.

Through the midnight river
and through the
sea of cars we make our
way through the coldness and
we find our way
to a small,
near abandoned rink.

It feels like
the brim
of a steaming mug.
The folds of its
arms
circling themselves around
its few
appreciators--
making me feel
somehow
home.

Homes can be found and made and broken from
almost anything, or anyone.
(Like nests or cuckoo clocks)
A pocket full of stars, a fraying red sweater, a tall
boy, a chipping coffee mug, a dog.
Home is anywhere you nestle into.

Like lost birds
in the wake
of winter
swimming against
the pushing nothing.

We always fight
for home.

Skate blades on ice
softly
puncture
the sweetly slick icicles
and scatter numbers
like molecules
across
an almost empty
ice rink.

I ask him,
the tall boy,
when did he ever
learn to
skate
so
beautifully?
He answers through a figure eight
that resembles a
curvy question
mark.

Oh how the cold night
slaps foolish thoughts
into
an almost
lovers heart
like it
slaps
red roses on
innocent
cheeks.

If I ached to reach
for a hand that did not belong to
me
entirely
I would let you know.

So believe me
when I whisper in your ear--
and I hardly ever whisper
for anybody--
I dreamed near
a thousand dreams upon that snow littered
skating rink
and
I watched as my fragile
glass fingers clenched themselves
into lonely fists
until they felt
better
opened to the
snowflakes
falling heavier than
any
snow fall I had ever before felt
for such a young
and red, red heart.

I'll tell you now so you don't
get the wrong idea:
I didn't let my
pale
glove-less
fingers wrap themselves around
any others.
Rather, I quietly
and peacefully marveled at the
endless ways a person can fall
over
and over
less gracefully
and much less captivating than
a snowfall.

One small
moment
of standing there
praying
not to fall,
not to be cradled by an ice bed,
but that's carefully
eroded by the
wanting
of another's intentions
and slowly
you fall over,
like a snowfall--for once--
and collide
with a tall boy
who could care less
about the ice
and more about you.

Or so you dream.

Skate blades on ice,
a pink sweater
and blood red lips.
You're hair clings
to the piling snow
and drips
like the salty
tears
warm against
your red cheeks,
your slippery ice blades,
against
him,
against
the snowfall.

Against everything.

-k.p.b.

{written for: December 30th, 2015, Wednesday, 6:00PM-12:00PM, Park City, Bridger Wilcox, Josh Gubler, Rachel and Kiersten Benson}

Plugs

Wednesday 
December 2, 2015
9:22PM

Sometimes, I feel as though the plugs and wires and buttons of technology are like veins and tubes connecting to my heart.
They pop and push inside my arteries as if they belong there, as if it is their home and not mine.
Without them I will die.
My lungs dance up and down for them, but my heart doesn't seem to like them. Deep down it knows they are not my friends.
They don't keep me alive.
Not really.
They eat me.
Bite by bite, shovel by shovel their stomachs are never quite satisfied.

I could drown in the monstrous shadows of my bedtime room and they wouldn't blink one tear for my loss.

Not one.

Are you following?

-k.p.b

Darkness

Do you ever feel your heart expanding so vastly you almost can't breathe--
like the world around you is no longer a world but an exquisite cage, full of dreams and life and love, closing in on you breath by breath?
Slowly the cage gets smaller but with each retraction you are somehow bigger and more open than ever before.
The cage becomes you and somehow you aren't dull and empty but alive.

Claude Monet once whispered in the darkness of his lover's ear--or perhaps the sky's--"I paint like a bird sings, in every harmony."
What could he mean?
Who was he speaking to?
To whom or what did those words erupt from?
Was it in a thought or a piercing moment first?
In the lover's ear alone could we ever find the answer.

I am in love.
I am erratically and irresistibly pulled by the stroke of love, the compelling fluid movement of Monet's brush itself. It swims around me as if to drown me in its gorgeousness and momentary existence.
I am a happy, but hopeless victim.

Why is that?
I once thought I figured it out.

James Dean.
His name has been seemingly in the air this week. There he is with rebellion ablaze in his blue, blue eyes. And I can see him now rolling them like the tongue of waves rolling off the ocean's breath, with tumult and anger and passion wrapped up in each other.
It's aggravating what one pair of electric blue eyes can flood the chambers of your heart with.
Aggravating.

They stare at me as if I ignored them half my life and the other half I nurtured them tenderly and purposefully, as if they know me all too well. As if they see into the dark unabashed corners of myself not one human has or ever deserves to see in their lifetime. As if they know every piece of me.
Am I crazy to think such thoughts when I am just a small girl with hair far too big for her body and two wicked eyes that see too much in too little?
Are my words nothing more than poetic dreams on my pillow, whispered in the only way my voice can whisper--sadly?
Sometimes, when my thinking dances wildly in the flicker of my nightlight, I let it swim around me as I stand waist-deep in thought, wondering what the sweet and innocent sensation of holding your hand, loving you entirely, would feel like.

Could I rather be peaceful like the Setting Sun on the Seine at Lavacourt, Winter Effect, and barter my time for a slipping coin of glittering gold? Could I rather let my rosy cheeks dash into pearly white ridges, tranquil and robust like Ice Floes? Could I rather be the throbbing heartache of the Water Lilies enveloped in rippling pools of passion and poetry? For once could it be me that catches the thirsty, racing heart beat and not the other way around?

For once could someone or something break their heart over and over again because they glimpsed me? Because they realize destruction is a form of creation--and a heart breaking is also a heart being born?
Am I nothing more than a shadow killed by the daylight of expectations and false ideas? Does this stark world see my red lips as blood dripping from the martyrs of poetry and true art and love? Or does this pale world see me as the rose petal falling from the Autumn bloom, alluring for one moment but gone and stepped on when the season is over?
Am I destined for nothing more than moths clinging to a flame of enchantment in the light, but bored the moment the candle flickers out? Is there not beauty in the darkness also?

I guess I am alone--
waiting in the darkness,
not for a light to come and fix it,
but for the one who finds the darkness as beautiful and wild and perfect as I do.
Perhaps someday someone will find me, writing on the pages of the night sky about the heart that made mine first skip a beat.
Perhaps he'll clasp my hand in his cold ones and tip the ink of starlight into my heart and then,
oh then, we'll be in darkness, perfectly lonely together.
Perhaps one day I'll be braver than the sad whispers of my aching midnight poetry.

Someday James Dean's eyes won't provoke me so and someday I will miss the way they teased me into insanity of heartache.

Someday I will be equal with the passion and hurt and sorrow of the world--
and we shall both suffer together,
in the dark.

-k.p.b.
Tuesday
"Claude Monet"

Snow Song

Have you ever had the good pleasure of hearing Schubert's D 957, No. 4 Standchen,"Swan Song"? I couldn't think of one single thing, sound, or taste that could compare to it--especially as the snow falls heavily, but delicately beside me. There they are like falling angels, drifting in a world stark by comparison of its purity. And here I sit wrapped up in euphoric melodies of great winged beasts and swelling hearts of misfortune and somehow all the fortune in the world seems to follow me deeper into my own heart as the perfectly elegant melody plays on.
First it's sad.
The small umbrella like creature isn't fully awake yet, its wings are only forming it's idea of flight. They're like broken branches still clinging to the crisp air of winter, not ready for the blush of spring to warm them and rub them into consciousness. How its tiny heart beats rapidly with anticipation of the world it has yet to know.
A crunch and crack. Next the wings stretch. They bend in a misshapen fashion until the delicate bones almost snap, pushing themselves against their fragile cabin, at last freeing himself from his ivory prison and home in one flicker of pressure.
How the golden flower awakes his senses and drowns his broken wings in diurnal goodness.
For a while he merely sits there taking in the vastness of color and smell and concoction of chill and warmth around him.
His little feet can't take him far, but he seems to have felt the course of the whole earth with each footstep he takes.
Yet in an instant, an idea pulses through him.
His wings begin to itch with intoxicating yearning. The desire to forsake his feet and stretch toward a bright domain he's never tasted devours all other senses. He must taste the sky even if he can't ever explain why.
Slowly he lowers himself from his solitude and in a rush of pure insanity he leaps from his broken house and lets the wind taste his feathers, the clouds kiss his muscles, feet, eyes and lastly the sky itself--how it looks at him as if he were only the first creature to ever experience flight. He lets the world of colors and expanse and freedom delight his spirit. His wings beat with the wind in a beautifully chaotic dance until the scintillating sky of night welcomes the moon and drenches his greyish wings in night light.
He sleeps for a moment in the starlight he has never before seen.
For many days this is the life he knows.
But night is not always so constant.
One fresh night of Summer, as his purring heart slowly sinks and rises to the usual rhythm of darkness, another being of night has a heart that is pounding and swiftly drawing closer. It yearns for his in a manner far more powerful than of his yearning of flight many moons ago.
The beast cloaked in darkness draws close to him.
He doesn't wake just yet.
The beast stares for a moment. It has seen this slumberous creature many times before, but never had it been so close.
Another heart race and then it lessens.
Softly and with the sfumato of moonlight just barely peaking around her, the creature bends down and gently pushes her lips against his own dreaming lips, possibly tasting his very dreams as she does it. It's so gentle he almost doesn't wake, but then a spoonful of moonlight shimmers on her body and dances against his eyelids in a rapture of waking him.
His eyes flutter open to her rapid heartbeat, but he doesn't move.
How could he?
They merely look into each other's eyes for a long moment. The night grew unusually quiet.
Sorrow comes at first, for the awoken beast, for surely he has never seen a creature so beautiful, so pure and white as fresh fallen snow. But his heart breaks at the thought the sky might've heard his aching thoughts. Perhaps he has betrayed the sky. He doesn't know. But suddenly, somethings shifts. The white angel moves away and with a tear sledding down the pillow of her white cheek she's gone.
Autumn follows where she wanders and leaves the sleeping beast in elegiac chill and sorrow.
A few tides of thought wash upon him, as the world he once knew is spun in gold and musk once more, "Will she ever come back? Does she know that Winter is coming? And could it be the sky has forgiven me yet?"
And lastly, "Was it all nothing more than a sad dream of toil and pleasurable pain?"
A flake or two begin to fall as these thoughts race through him night after night. He can't sleep without those haunting eyes of Summer starlight keeping him company.
On the first day of real snow, everything changes. Through the flurry of ivory music a dancer falls through it, as if making a waltz of the Winter around her.
The starlit girl.
She's here, inside the sky and dancing alone with the Winter wind and the sky's falling angels.
For one moment, and just one only, he stops and watches the way the snowflakes tangle in her pure white wings--and then he joins the dance.
It is the waltz his heart had always been searching the skies for.
And last, happiness.
-k.p.b.
Monday 10:23AM
The first breathless fall of gentle snow.

Euphoria

I am breathless by the eyes of the stars. They stare at me as hungrily as I stare at them; as if I am a fox with big brown eyes of curiosity and mysterious innocence, and they--they are little birds cooing at the toil and wreckage of the earth. With unorthodox voices that haunt you in your sleep, they sing to you a melody that only your deep and cachet soul can hear. It's a sound of spirit and pure submersion.
The stars are lingering poets in a graveyard of Romanticism and abandoned abbeys where the winter sun rises slowly, palely, personally. It always seems they are for your soul, and yours alone. I am exasperated with teasing provocation when they see me--like an almost lover lingering near my lips but never quite pushing them against my own. They tickle my insanity in a sweet and sadistic way. Yes, the stars--against common belief--can be cruel and devouring creatures.
They can cut you open with an double-edged fork and shovel portions of your heart into their stomachs.
They don't need a reason to stop, either.
But they are kind. Truly the stars are kind crackles of light illuminating our dark world. Like lanterns they path the way into our souls without a thought of obligation weighing in their arms--it's what they are made to do, I guess.
Tonight my breath was caught between their warm arms and spun into a "quintessence" of rapturous awe. I felt my chest heave and ho, fall and rise, jump and sleep, jump and sleep all over again until I felt with a real palpable yearning to kiss somebody. Did I wish to kiss the stars? A boy? The cold crisp night air slapping rose petals on my cheeks? Does it truly matter who or what my lips yearned for when the impulse of loving life and breathing overcame my senses? (Overcame myself even?)
You see sometimes I yearn to be alone. I yearn for it so fiercely I forget what great fear and loneliness most people find in it. So tonight, a boy drove steadily through a thin road drenched in nightlight, as I ached to reach for his hand and hold it tightly, as the small rattling car was filled with the sound of unfinished stories and people who couldn't compliment each other more perfectly. First a girl with thick curling rays of sunlight and ridged cheeks to match her merry spirit. Second a boy who lost his lion's mane and found true friends instead. Third a boy with exquisite blue eyes that sparkle like dripping water on a sunny day and strong hands as cold and meticulous as branching ice crystals. Last a girl with tangling hair and curious fox-like tendencies. She is the misfit. The first is the light source. The second the never-failing anchor. And the last a flame.
There we were late into the small abandoned world around us, traveling through soundtracks and cutting through the dead, silent autumn night to venture around the forsaken bones of a cement factory. The sky was partly-cloudy but speckled with bright stars and all I felt my pounding heart say to me was, "Chase those blasted stars"!
 I climbed and climbed, often getting lost from the group, but finding my own strength and bravery with each stolen step toward the pinholes of heaven. I wasn't afraid--I had no fear for the strange words and pictures left by humans miles and miles away probably sleeping or doing something I could only wonder about. I wasn't afraid of the shadows creeping around me, twisting my hair with the quiet wind and collapsing into piles of crumbled stone. I didn't even fear the lingering idea that followed me up the broken building and slept beside me as I stretched out on top of a narrow pillar curved perfectly for a human body--"Do you really love that boy you talk about in your sleep? Or do you tell yourself you must?"
I don't know stalking beast of quiet devouring.
But I know, as surely as I did when I asked each of my friends if it truly is possibly for someone to love you as much as you love them, that love exists. I know that pounding hearts, stolen breaths, and endless nights of tears and poets and exhaustion of emotion are what we live for--we live for love or we do not live a life at all.
I sat up at the top of the world (or perhaps only an abandoned cement factory littered with thoughts and words and four wandering people) for who knows how long before my friends followed me and broke the silence I had grown to love more than fear.
We talked of life.
We silently pretended we had a clue.
The sun-ray asked each of us, "What's one thing you want to do before you die?" We all stayed silent until one admitted it was love they wanted, and then we laughed for truly that was the answer we all wanted to say but somehow lacked the courage to. I responded, "I want to feel love as pure and raw as Victor Hugo." I want a love that I know will love me back.
So we stared at the stars and acted like we had a clue and that we, so small and frail, were running the show. But the more I look up at the stars, the more I sit alone and fall madly in love with the quiet, the more I realize I never was running the show--and I never will.
What an exquisite thought that is.
-k.p.b.
November 5, 2015
2:00AM (When poet's are alive and awake)

Potpourri

Nov. 3, 2015 11:15PM, [k.p.b.]:
Professor [c.d.],

As I was taking the exam 2 today, I was spending a lot of time on my concluding essays and I wanted to be very thorough, but as I was finished and heading for my class I realized I had completely forgot about the simple and easy bonus question--our favorite piece of artwork from this semester! It's so silly and I feel slightly stupid asking you this, but could I submit it to you now in this e-mail? I know it's only a bonus question, but one point may be that extra little umph needed to do my absolute best and as I worked hard on my exam I feel it would only feel complete if I told you that my favorite work we studied this time was: (First) Bernini, "Ecstasy of Saint Teresa" -- for the raw passion and poetic perfection. It's as if Bernini has fingers of paint and hands of fluid creation. I absolutely fall weak in the knees at his masterpieces. I only wish I could see them for myself, I'm not sure my body could handle it, but I know my soul would soar at such an exquisite sight! St. Teresa's words pierce my soul, much like the "fiery dart of love" that pierces her own. It's incredible. 

(Second) David, "Death of Marat"-- for the uncensored outrage and seemingly gentle and soft exquisiteness, the pure elegiac sfumato just drives me insane, but in the best sense. I just want to understand the fury behind such a painting, the sorrow David must've felt with each stroke he created of the death of his friend (even if it was a vain and asked for death). I truly could never understand such an emotional potpourri of anger, sorrow and hope for the figure of his friendship.

 I truly love both of those pieces, so wildly. 

Anyway, I hope this is okay for me to ask and even if I don't get the bonus point I still want you to know I truly enjoy every second of class and I'm finding a new passion for history and art as I've never had before and I want to thank you for giving that gift to me. It is a beautiful gift. 

Thanks again Professor [c.d.]! I hope you have a wonderful night. 

Today 10:19AM, [P.c.d.]:

Hello [k.p.], 

First off, may I just say that your beautifully written email, and your explanation of your appreciation for Bernini's and David's work brought a tear to my eye!  I completely agree with you -- Bernini's sculpture is absolutely jaw-dropping, and as for David, he is in my personal pantheon of artists :)  

I would be delighted to give you the bonus point for your answer -- in fact, I just pulled your exam to the top of the stack to grade and wow, absolutely outstanding work!  Excellently written, articulated, and supported answers -- your final essay is one of the best comparisons of West and David I have read in a long time.  You should be very pleased with your work -- your newfound passion for art history definitely shined through (in a chiaroscuro kind of way) ;) 

And thank you, thank you so much for your kind words -- you have made my day!!  

Have a delightful morning -- see you in class in a few hours,
[C.d.] 

Post script: This, as I cannot explain in words alone, has made me happier than anything I've been blessed to experience this week. I contemplated e-mailing my Professor at all as it honestly seemed like such a trivial matter, but as my mother is almost always right I decided to listen to her advice and how I wish you could only see the smile that crackles across my face right now, ridging my cheeks and spreading elation throughout my body like hot cider from following her advice! I opened that e-mail with the hopes that it was positive (I meant it when I told her I could care less about the bonus point), I just wanted her to know that what I said was from my heart and not my head for some bonus point. I wanted her to genuinely know that what I talked about meant something, something monumental inside me that hardly I could understand. And there it was--she understood and honestly flattered me in the greatest way I've ever been flattered. I'm honored by her compliment and only hope I can be as happy as I am now someday along the road when I look back and remember this. It's strange. This unusual joy feels more like a beginning than anything else. I await this class every time I come to school, but there's an electric feeling coursing through my body, like something is beginning and even though the horizon is all I see right now, I await the day I finally understand what all this means. I do not fear ambiguity, nor do I think it bad. I know it to be my friend and only walk beside it with an open mind and flaming curiosity I simply delight myself at having. 

Thank you Professor, for what ever beginning you have ignited. I shall be thankful always for your spark--of intellect, curiosity and above all, beginning.  -k.p.b. (smiling to myself in a yellow coat and a happy disposition.)
And by the way, these are the pieces of perfection I referenced above, in case you're wondering. 

Bernini, "Ecstasy of Saint Teresa" (1645-1652)

David, "Death of Marat" (1793)

Tuesday

 "That the Powerful Play Goes on"

(w.w. 305)

She lost herself

in not just another book, 

but rather a piece of her soul that had 

gone

missing.

There is was like a gentle

bird with prostrate and bended 

wings--

its eyes singing with the same voice

as her own.

"You are not lost," 

it began 

and then she read on.

She read until it filled her with delight, 

until the crisp pages

bent in the corner beautifully

stuck to her heart

where it would stay

always. 

-k.p.b.

A Friday Lunch

I don't know what it is about today that just makes the prettiest song seem like a lullaby of happiness.
I see my toes peeking from behind my laptop as I quickly roll my fingers across the melodic keys, the pattern reminding me of my heartbeat as a soft autumn song caresses me.
Today I talked with a "kindred spirit"(as Anne Shirley would say) in a slot of time where time did not exist.
We talked and talked as though we had been talking for decades and this was our usual spot in a cafe and the salads we talked over were our usual orders and the customers around us were just paintings on the wall watching our every word but not caring one bit what we actually talked about.
I recall it began around noon when we met together at a cafe after running in to each other a few days previously and deciding we needed to get together.
But the funny thing about running in to someone is usually, as humans, the natural response is, "Oh it's been so long, we should really catch up!" but then funnily enough they usually never desire to see them again, let alone actually follow up with the notion they just gave.
Humans are weird.
Just a few days ago after saying those exact words to Caitlyn, but actually meaning them, she texted me. She asked to go to lunch.
What human does that? Then again, all good humans do, actually.
It made me so happy that some friend, some human actually followed their word and took action to see it through. I was elated (even if it wasn't a Tuesday, it felt like one then).
I awoke this Friday morning with the crisp Autumn mid-morning air waltzing about my exhausted figure and it's strange how few people actually don't stop and smell the roses--literally.
There I was in love with life and morning and breath itself, I stopped my thinking for a moment or two and smelled every single rose on the rose bush beside me.
They were decadent.
I remember one crumbling at the soft brush of my fingertips and my heart sank as I scurried to collect them and lay them somewhere special (a statue of two children reading a book together).
It's incredible how much humans miss in one day if they forget to live the life that was given to them; I guess every human being elects the life they think they deserve.
I guess.
But the moment came when the beloved luncheon arrived and our long and mid-conversation-like talking was awakened. We talked and talked, but we never once reached for our devices of distraction and false conversation. We only looked around us and between us. We were two friends of alike minds and intellect so closely related our conversations could've filled three books in just one sitting.
We talked of everything, too.
Books.
Love.
Life.
Humans.
Movies.
Poetry.
Books.
Love.
Music.
Sadness.
Ice cream.
Family.
Books.
Life.
It sounds like our conversation was a pumping heartbeat rising and falling but truly it was more like a constant, needed vein leading to the next topic and the next as if they were already connected and waiting to be used all leading up to the same place--a heart.
You don't know real conversation until you forget you're even having one. A truly valuable conversation doesn't feel like two people using their voices, but rather two spirits holding hands and understanding.
Caitlyn gets it.
We can talk about everything without reservations and yet we talk about anything that makes or doesn't make sense to us and we always understand each other.
I remember at one point she said to me, "You're really easy to talk to." Wow. I can't explain in words how happy that made me. I always try and try to listen intently, but often find myself wavering in flowing conversation unless I'm truly immersed.
But I've had an epiphany. I've discovered through the immersion of truly deep and valuable conversation today that the only people worth surrounding yourself with are the ones, the souls that don't make your spirit saunter, but the ones that make it soar. A friend, a sister, a brother, mother, dog, bird, book or plant--whoever or whatever it is that makes up the company you have make them worthwhile.
"We accept the love we think we deserve." And so it goes with company.
If you are surrounding yourself with insipid spirits--why even waste your one and only precious life on them?
I spent hours last night feeling miserably lonely in the company of many I thought were alike spirits to myself. There I sat curled up in a blanket next to them, a chilling night breeze rattling my bones, hot cider on my breath, and the stars watching in wonder probably whispering to themselves, "Why is she with them? Doesn't she know what she's worth? Doesn't she see that we find her just as fascinating as she finds us?" And that's the key--finding people who find you as exciting and brilliant and beautiful as you find them.
Words.
Words as Caitlyn put it, are the key to expressing exactly what we mean in the precise manner we mean to express it. Art, music, poetry--they are not echoes of thought, but are direct thought.
So hear my words, read them as they drip from my lips, and know that I am worth a thousand sunsets drenched in gold and becoming starlight.
I deserve every book that sings to my soul louder than any song of a lover ever could, for now.
My soul delights in beautiful things that find life and love and sadness equally as beautiful as the find me.
I am waiting to be hugged, held, caressed and ignited by someone whom I can hug, hold, caress and ignite as well.
I do not reject.
I deserve a friend with whom I can talk hours with and still never realize we're talking.
I am accepting the love, the life and the world I think I deserve--and by heaven and hell I deserve a beautiful one.
I always have.

That's all. {Beta: a Prologue}

If I had a dog I'd name her Beta.
It isn't just an adorable name--its a matter of fact, beta means many things but of those there is the one that speaks her name: a systematic risk.
Or so it says.
The only risk I could think of having Beta is the risk of falling too deeply in love with her and never wanting to let her go.
I'm sure she's wonderful, where ever she is right now.
Perhaps she hasn't even been born yet.
Perhaps she's searching for me just as restlessly as I am searching for her.
I wonder, is she quiet and reserved like my favorite poet? (M.O.)
Could she be reckless and bold and undeniably zealous, much like the outlandish and fuming girl of green gables I look up to so much? (A.S.)
Is she like a tempest of thought, a wave of pensive thinking and throbs? (W.W.)
All I think of when I turn to her--or at least the idea of her for now--is what on earth this sweet, adorable and vital creature is going to be to me for the rest of my life.
Does she even know that someday we'll be so lovely and gentle to eachother, we'll wonder where we've been all the time of existence, if not together.
I love Beta.
I do not even know her physically, but I do know she is there.
She is the idea of the love I've never known--the love of dependency, on me as much as on her.
If I never find her I wouldn't want to stop looking, even if I knew the moon was closer than she was to me.
I don't care about the facts, I don't care if it's a risk loving her--all I need is the comfort her nestled black body and chilly nose next to me brings. A small curled perfection cuddling with me sounds the closest thing to heaven right now.
All I need is to know something can love me just as effortlessly and devotedly as I do them.
That's all.
-k.p.b.

A bent corner of a beautiful page

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the the walk of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking , suffering, dying.
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you may be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries.

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!

Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself,
Through birth, life, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.

-w.w.
"To You"
1819-1892

(slightly condensed)
If I could be so lucky as to hear these unadulterated words spoken softly and genuinely to me-- or if I could be so bold as to do so to another  myself. -k.p.b.