mango

Love's like mangoes,
 
what you and I had
was a fruit so ripe it almost busted in the bag.
 
it was a slice bleeding deep, bright yellow,
when the knife asked it to open up;
rich rich summer came out,
too much juice  
to make it to the mouth
 
and sticky, delicious hands, afterwards,
after biting into  
the color you get when
sunset meets tigers meets cayenne
meets fire -
you were perfect,
not romanticized,
not some vignette I might bookmark for a future backdrop
to gallop into on a white horse -
no,  
you were
in-my-hand,
tangible,
didn't wanna get my hopes up,
love wasn't even in season,
but soon as that knife
did a deep flesh-dive,
and just went sliding through?
I knew.
This was gonna be.  
so.
good.
 
And we said it all the time:
"I can't believe I found you,"
we said it
when I said it I meant it
and I think
so did you
I fit into your lifestyle like  
sunlight tappin on the back of the blinds,
as regular as the day,
you opened up that window
and let me in,
let me warm up your covers,
let me and my voice shine
I'm the songbird,
and I can't help thinking that every time I let my melodies fly
it's gonna be tweets
beggin for the sun to replay,
re-rise,
do it again,
those April-May weeks when we were drowning in each other's eyes,
not even infatuation, just...
surprise,
just,
I've been waiting for someone to see me like that
my whole life;
 
my love, you
and your work weighting your shoulders
and your accent
and your twelve-years older,
and your chemistry with me that leapt up in the bed when I woke it,
started growling
as I cajoled it
you said it's never been like that before,
I may be foolish for this but I believe you,
 
you live in the pursuit of your goals before women,
for some reason I know
you meant it;
I was your eighth, or seventh, or sixth, it
makes no difference
 
Maybe I can get under someone else's eyes
and feel the same word ring through my psyche
but you set that bar so high.
That word was yes.
Yes,  
yes like,
I would feel it in my fingers in my toes when you took me,
yes,
my soul asked you to grab and really shake and so you shook me,
yes,  
I have marks from you channeling messages to me directly as they should be,
yes,
I know enough to recognize a good thing.
 
I know I'm carrying every minute I spent with you in my chest
but when I linger on those memories too long, I redirect em,
I heard the more you think about your memories  
the more they are rewritten;
I'm saving that heavenly section of my head
that I made a conscious effort to collect  
(you know, any time I touched you, lips or bodies or hands
I was writing down the details
engraving them on my brain stem)
yes, I'm saving them,
I'm letting them be
the perfect mango,
the perfect love that could have been  
light scattered in the mornings and at night, the cold nip,
the next bite...
then on my death bed
maybe they'll be kind enough to shape themselves
into your shape  
and they'll fly back to this country
and spend
with me the minutes till my end;
make it a warm exit.
 
I feel no ache,
maybe it will come later,
but I need to speak it,
whether you will ever hear or read it -
I need to mention
that some things will always be yours.
I think the puddles on the bathroom floor
would curse me  
if I ever gathered water between my boobs
from the showerhead  
and splashed another dude.
Nah, that belongs to you.  
never another's thing.  
 
I bet any time you notice
your belt for a conscious moment
you'll associate the leather with
other things.  
 
Neither of us ever said forever out loud,
I felt myself wanting it, but told that want to calm down.
so now that you are somewhere over the ocean,
coursing for homeland,
 
I cannot but shake my head
and shrug
at losing the best love there ever was,
because
I have learned to understand
that the best things  
are often so sweet  
and so ripe
and so delicious
because of their rarity,
because of how abruptly
the flavor just ends.

you were the perfect mango,
i’m gnawing on the pit.