The Poet

Back then, I pretended to be a poet so I could trade words for your clothes until my poem ended and you were naked. I would scatter lines across the floor of your days for you to dance along and into my waiting arms. I would kiss rhymes onto your lips and entangle your tongue around my rhythms.

Back then, I knew how to make you dance for me. Back then, I knew the shaman’s secret spells that would unlock your desires and turn them towards me.

I thought I knew all the secrets of language and how to get it to perform for me. All I ever wanted, though, was to feel the warmth of your skin against me and feel as though each of those breaths you took were all for me.

I thought I could take you by the hand down to watch that river running by, or take you to the beach and hold you as you looked out across that infinite sea. I thought that all these words would become a magic spell that would capture you for me.

I thought I could do all these things and still you would not know that was only pretending to be a poet so that you could pretend to love me for a while, until the day came when I ran out of soft words to whisper in your ear.