After it's over and there's nothing
but the crushing winter quiet that 
I can almost hold as a touchstone,
there are no silver points of stars,
nothing but the falling snow as I 
remember what I should have said.

Words that may never bring you home,
I don't know how to say that you
deserve more than I know how to give.

But there's no going back 
once you've cut that deep,
once you've touched the soul
and I'm only whispering this now
because you once asked me 
to tell you where it hurt and why.

But I can't describe the way your face 
lit up in a flash of violent lightning 
one night as we walked before 
the rain was ready to burst from
the sky that was dark unmoving smoke
trapping the sound of leaves breaking
with our every slow step to your house,
your eyes so dark that they glittered
against even the faintest slant of light.

I note the force of being pinned against
your bed for the very first time
and even many times later the way 
your longing hummed and charged your bones
made me feel like something completely weightless,
something so tiny simply caught in a storm
and always ready to just be blown away. 

You pulse against my lips so hard 
that I'm convinced this beating vein
fluttering so delicately beneath the skin
is truly where all desire and need begin,
all the familiar places made anew.

I don't know what still rages there
but I can still feel the need
to meet the way rain meets,
indistinguishable from one another
with a helpless fury crashing from 
gravity's resolute unseen draw.

It's where everything is both sweet liquid,
a rippling push and pull all at once
and it's a mystery why we're very different
yet perfectly made only for one another.

And I shouldn't look for answers
in between such a breathless crescendo,
that tiny space between surrender and release,
even if I remember what I was going to say,
I can change the beautiful shape of this 
too much if I dare to say anything out loud now.

But there's no going back
when you want to know 
exactly what cut me so deep,
you whispered to tell you
where it hurt and why.

And even if it wouldn't matter, 
if words can't bring you home
I want to just go back there
before we really know how 
selfish our hearts can really be,
how dark our shadows really are.

But I can't describe the swell of flames
gathering in the darkness between bodies
moving in a ravenous tandem towards
brightness that will be a welcome oblivion,
I note the force of you pulsing around me
while inside a place that is like a second skin
that I've always been waiting to be reunited with,
a storm was still surging outside and within
and maybe I was just waiting to be blown away.

Maybe such intensity can't last 
without turning us into cinders,
into a split touchstone now
scattered along the falling snow
and all that should've been said.

I don't know how to say that maybe
you deserve more than I know how to give.

It cut even deeper when your fingertip
touched my lips to hush everything,
to quiet the tempests in our hearts
and tell me we don't have to say anything yet.