We Aren't So Different You And I

If I can put my hand on a maple branch And feel its frozen bark If my fingers blanch At the remnants of snow Then it must be real, it must be so

But close your eyes, meet me in Rome I have been there Did you know? Or would you not agree? If I have never touched a cypress tree?

I am sitting at the window The sun is out but it's chilly It's a lazy golden afternoon The neighbor's chickens Have escaped their coop again They're wandering down the street Stopping at bird feeders And pecking at the ground

It occurs to me after minutes Of simply observing the Peculiar way they move their heads That I have no thoughts in my own That I am completely mesmerized By mindlessly fleeing fowl It is a good day for watching And doing nothing else at all

She asks me casually Why do I love you? And what sort of question is that?

I love you simply because I know no other way of being To not love you is not an option To not love you would be An emptiness my heart doesn't deserve

She asks again Why do I love you? Does she think I can find reasons?

I love you because I did once One time that is ever continuous One lifetime of love inside my body A body that is far from you still A body that holds me like I hold you

She asks once more Why do I love you? Did I not answer her question?

I love you because I want to My love for you is my greatest joy Without hope or fantasy or dreaming I love you because it is enriching I love you because it is necessary

Tell me why you ban the books Which tell stories of Two male penguins adopting a child, Books that show disabled kids And gender non conforming kids And black kids whose teachers Forget their names?

Tell me why you ban the books That challenge you Because they are written plainly About plain people Who are different from you?

Tell me why books are taken off shelves For being too explicitly queer When you force children to read Passages from the bible about Rape, genocide, slavery, and a hateful god? Why is your book not banned For depicting in detail such things?

What makes your book the exception? You censor children from truths And teach them a god will hate them Because they are different You teach children to hate themselves Because your book holds no space for them

If I write you You will never leave You will be with me When you are not

If I write you You will stay mine I will have you Even though I do not

I dropped him Like burnt toast, So suddenly Unwanted, Heartlessly Discarded, and I, The one who Neglected and Blackened him, Convince myself It was justified

One day we will wake up And we'll be older One will suddenly wake up Wondering why she feels colder One of us won't wake up at all A fallen soldier One day there will just be one of us A somber loner One day the second will wake up In a place the first will hold her One day we won't wake up We won't get older

You are candlelight My yellow rose Every song I'll ever compose We are elegance And flowing words The freedom between Mated birds We've been thunder Pouring rain The healing after Endless pain I'm a soft brush With eternity Always painting You and me

I am floating in the earth's Ink, a night dew

My eyes have turned a kind Of lost dark blue They are someone else's eyes I have never seen through This particular hue

This is not my color I am so blue So blue, so blue

I'll slip behind these navy Stars, just to avoid the view

Does anyone else Count syllables on fingers While writing haiku?