The Longest Poem Poem by A Waltz For Zizi

I believe I would be happy to find myself
in your palms, painfully unfolded and read
on the inside, unintentionally tasting your
breath, your fingers drawing invisible lines
on my skin. What kind of girl you must be
the kindness, the things you say that make me
go somewhere else when I'm with you, into
another world that doesn't know anyone but you
and me, a quiet place where we can talk about
the rain that in it's fall misses your lips
because of the umbrella I hold above our heads
or about nothing at all. This letter makes me
fear what I might do to you if my words aren't
perfect, if there are too few or too many of them
before I tell you I've fallen in love with you.

Because I don't know your name, your story
I love you even more. I imagine stories about you
about your heart that must have Russian origins
your lips French, your skin Norwegian. I draw my line
closer and closer to you. I put the first letter
in your palm, to be sure it reaches you, but
if it reaches you it also means I cannot add
anything else into it. In your eyes I will be
like this forever.

Your breath, being palpable to my lips it's because
of the silence, because we barely speak, because
no one writes about you on Saturdays. No one worries
you might not come on Monday for the buss. I realize
I cannot go anywhere but in your palms. I'm just sleepless
again, as I've been since January, and if I have to think of you
I write. It's better to remember my thoughts, as I can
come back to them if anything disturbs me in some evil intent
to make me forgetful of you. Life consists also in forgetting
that's why I write about you everything that will hold you
correctly into my memories, unspoiled. I'm ashamed to tell you
I love you, without proof. I keep thinking to myself if
I've not been too gentle with my letters if I've not shown you
myself, what I'm capable of, what actually goes through my mind.
Challenge me to face whatever monstrosity hides in your heart.

Sometimes I hear you letters out loud as you are here
reading them from the opposite side of the room and I
bound to the ground, unable to get up yo touch you
to make this loneliness tolerable. Perhaps I've become
too dependent on you, on your letters, but isn't this
love? After all, I just told you I've fallen in love with you.
The same 'thing' knocks at my door and brings me another one
of your letters. It's still warm from your fingers. If I could
only preserve it like this, so that every time I touch it
I touch you too. Before the world, comes you, your letters,
so I have to read them and remember every word, everything that
threatens to be erased if I ever happen to lose them, even though
you know I handle them as I would handle a butterfly that lands
in my palm.

How I seek your scent in the letters you send the trail of
your fingerprints. How I seek your scent in the buses we ride
the glimpse of your reflection in the window, the sound of your
breathing, the warmth you leave behind. When you look away
I secretly push into my lungs with both hands the air that
you exhale. I want to try out your lips, and write to you
letters that sprint toward your heart, that peck at your
door, that unravel me to you.

Sometimes I feel we have the same room and to each other
we are invisible and can only write letters to speak.
I write to you from far away just like I would write
to a lover, painfully and perhaps too timidly of the things
I want to say. I think to myself I must not add you into
my world, into my poems. You are meant to be a great muse.
But then I have traveled so late to see you, so I can
confide this love in you. I trust you don't have any other
letters to read, only this, from me, that reproduces my
thoughts on a Saturday. Apparently I'm the stranger that
says hello to you in the morning, a man, although more of
a boy that believes you are beautiful. This is not a joke.
I didn't write this to be deceptive. I am whatever I am,
but I'm not a liar.

Perhaps April will not stand between us as well. I
understand words. Your letters belonging to me,
In a cruel way you can say you belong to me too.
You write your courage, however I cannot say the same.
My fear is that you will actually grow fond of me,
let me loose and like an animal dying of thirst
I will come to you to kiss you, and in terror you
will turn your head away. I cannot say I don't understand.
I am used to this retreat. There is nothing I am.
Paper thin, poor, stupid, lazy, afraid to rise
to my true height. I somehow love the wounds in
your heart, the price love requires. You have lived
with courage, purity, freedom, devotion. I have not.
I have cheated myself. I have lived accidentally.
I have fought against others when I should have
fought against myself. But then something happened,
I met you waiting for the bus, my bus. Anyone else
whatever he beholds cannot love as I love you
from just a glance that you have given me.
This is not arrogance, but modesty.

I've prolonged this more than I should have.
I have no idea where this abundance of foolishness
is coming from. Perhaps I am trying to make you
kiss this piece of paper and from over here feel it too.