"The Space Around Us," by C.L. Uhl

The Space Around Us
C.L. Uhl


the way you love me is going to crush me alive.
leave the breath of my throat (i say throat
because the throat is the seat of all human beauty:
the breath, keeping us alive, thickening when we near each other,
the singer, whose anxious chords call out heaven from endless hells,
the vishuddhi, chakra of creativity and expression,
and the voice that allows us to communicate this creativity
and form some sort of spiritual communion in the cadences and silences of one another)
leave the sacred breath of my throat lost and rambling in yours
my last word
a clumsy misspeak of your name.

teach me to love with my eyes closed.
every second every word every kiss that falls from our mouths
undistracted by the space around us
there doesn’t have to be space around us
we can be the space around us
i can occupy everything that isn’t you and you can live inside of me
i will be an ocean that you can drown in willingly
and you can be my house
(our love is just our virginal hearts playing house
and the silly beating of my girl’s heart under woman’s flesh)
and kiss me to sleep like
stars and suns and moons and planets
orbiting


C.L. Uhl is "a youngun poet -- 15 years old -- who can't stop a poem any better than she can stop a sneeze." This poem originally appeared on Literary Kicks on July 21, 2010 where she writes under the name mimes are just creepy.