Love Letters Between a Writer & His Muse

I.
I have a joke for you.
It starts with desire.

II.
A bottle deep and I can’t stop noticing the dark blue of your eyes.
Three kisses and you’ll break necks trying to find the door.
What use am I to you, love?

III.
We bloomed in the moonlight,
waking to a sleepy horizon and cigarette burns on the nightstand.

I know how it left you frightened,
fighting off words as passion threw its arms around your waist.

IV.
We carved our names into the inside of her dresser drawer,
we danced until our feet grew raw,
flecks of red ruining your mother’s new rug.
Where is your mother now?
Will you tell her I’m sorry?

V.
It’s a good joke.

I told you to remember this:
A part of me will always be the one that lived inside of you,
who grew in your veins and moved beautifully within your ribcage.

VI.
They told you what to dream.
You made me up to be a masterpiece,
a touch of a memory that never really existed outside of a fragile mind.

VII.
Don’t you remember the cold?
We held hands that froze together and our feet barely touched the ground.
I mistook your smile for love, but that wasn’t the first time.

What were the stars thinking about?
The sky in winter always left us in a lavender haze,
and your lips were blue when you told me that we’d be fine,
to close my eyes,
the moon wasn’t watching us anymore.