Is It Beautiful To Say I Love You Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Is it beautiful to say I love you
Even though I haven’t seen you for ten years?
But you once kissed my neck and you are not my aunt.
I still feel you there, and you are behind my eyes.
I look upon you though I haven’t seen you for
All this time.

You said two years ago that I don’t
Really know you, but that was on the telephone.
How come? I want to know
You, and in the language my hands create, I pretend
To know you. I know you! Or I am just foolish
And have never loved.

Stand in front of me and tell me you
Do not love me, and then I will leave you alone,
Though you might follow me if you wish,
With the trail my heart bleeds.

My favorite high school teacher says these
Poems are good, even though they are all about you.
He says get over you, but he also didn’t know
That I could graduate—I say, I don’t need to
Get over you. You are all that I have.
In fact, I need you.... not so much the poems....

And is that all there is when I touch myself
Involuntarily in the night, because I need you there?
Or will you finally come to me, and allow us to
Create for real all that I have hoped
And written.