I Want You to Write Me Like the Ocean

i want you
to write me like the ocean

let my name be the tired metaphor that
your poetry cannot stop returning to,
the worn out imagery that
your words slip into to get comfortable
at night
cast your bottled up stanzas into
the cupped sea of my open hands
rave about the wave in my hair
go, tell all your poet friends
how your muse tastes like saltwater
make another comparison between
me and the embrace of tide and shore
let them wonder
if i am passive receiver or
fickle embracer holding nothing back

i want you
to write me like the ocean

fill your lines with my growling storms
the sunlight pen strokes of your
love letters dancing
off the flicker of my smile
allude to Poseidon’s horses
one more time
when my laughter gallops clean out of me,
press your head to my heart again
try to find new ways to explain
how you hear the sea in my heartbeat
come up completely empty
then write about my seashell chest anyway

i want you
to write me like the ocean

help me figure out whether
you still hear the waves
when our eyes allow our souls to meet
and in the hearing,
i wonder whether i make you feel as if
you are being dragged under or
pulled steadily to safer shores-

i want you
to write me like the ocean