I wonder if it’s ever really possible to love someone entirely.

To cover someone with the touch of your love

must take a lifetime.

To know every nook and cranny of our

endless maze, cauliflower brains.

Can you love something you’ll never truly discover?

And then they talk of souls as if they need a mate …

Boys have said they’d like to kiss me everywhere.

I roll my eyes

to such commitment thrown in passing

between the rush of kisses, the force of passion.

Don’t you know how big even the smallest adult is?

I imagine lovers failing to realise this.

The canvas in 3D must seem manageable.

Spread out. Laid down. Hung up on a wall.

Then tell me you will take the time to paint me love or red, or blue.

And I will tell you which corners and sides I will allow you to.

I want to consume you, make you an artist

hell-bent on perfecting the love of me.

No, you will not kiss me everywhere in passing passion,

but in slow dedication you may make me see beauty.

I know when I think of kissing you everywhere,

I plan to write you like one of my novels:

Planned with precision, carved out skeletons

down to every bone of you.

Every mole, every detail placed with purpose

because I know this is who you are: my love.

And I will approach you chapter by chapter, out of order and go over you again and again.

My first draft will be messy and take me many years;

The perfecting of loving you will do so again.

But you and I will learn so much.

I hope there will be things you’ve never experienced with anyone else.

I know when I place my lips and press upon you,

I am committed to writing every inch of you with love.

How else could I kiss you everywhere?

You grow every fortnight.

By the next full moon, your whole body will be

untouched by my lips.

Then I must begin again.