I spoke to you of nerves
Of scattered thinking
With breath held back, I did not mean to share
That particular bit of self
Before you begged me sweet and sure
To give, to let, to let you in
And yet once begun I could not return to nothings
You argued back sweet anticipation
Excitement flush, and all things good
And what I did not say
Although I said "what matters it, when all they feel the same"?
What I did not say
Was how these butterflies are not
Alone about your touch
Your smile, your look
Although these things affect me greatly
Nor what to say or when
Nor who to be nor why
Nor how you think and feel and live
Nor what sweet things might pass between us
as we walk some gentle forest path
No, these palpitations come due
As I suspect
Each moment with you to be quite possibly
The next moment of my very life
We together face a crossroads in my soul
Our souls?
I know not how it came to be
But yet it is
A mantle of responsibility
I try to hold free of your strong shoulders
(Which, by the way,
Are begging for my touch)
Although I struggle under the weight and breadth of it
Alone
The next sweet word or look or touch
A breath, a simple blade of grass
May be the one
deciding all the vistas yet to come
Set us forth on some great epic
Together or alone
You, reading, scoff. Say "Bah! silly girl
Are you not perhaps pretentious
Slow down, 'tis not that great a worry
You frighten me with your talk of tomorrows!"
Oh, love, I know
I feel it in my aged ageless soul
Portentious bliss or ruin lies before us
And my nerves of steel run molten craven coward
For though I think and fight and feel
Figure furiously in panic and in calculating calm
Still I do not know upon which path
We've set our silly feet
This knowing and unknowing fuels my fears
Anticipation, excitement comes with knowing
Bliss will come, is yours, is mine to have for taking
But nerves, those shake up from not knowing
And yet knowing that it matters… matters deeply
I will keep it from my face if not my hands
From my conversation and my laughter
Through my words alone in writing might you hear
These thoughts, these fears of mine
Unless you ask
Until you beg me sweet and sure
To give, to let, to let you in
To make of us our own
Some sweet tomorrow all anticipation
To be yours, be mine,
Be ours to have for taking
For then will nervousness have flown.
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