I’m Gonna Confess

( a prose poem spill & scrub )
          
Geoff, I’m gonna confess something to you right here and now, so don’t blame me, but congratulate yourself. I mean that in the best possible way. You know I don’t hold back, you know I haven’t believed in a woman deliberately trying to be mysterious since before you and I met. Like it’s a religion or a cult. And it all turns yeasty like false news because the mystery goes stale after it’s kept shelved and unused for so long, the cow herself forgets, and her milk dries up. But that’s not all that evaporates...            
             
Yeah no I’m okay. You know how I get, and I always say hey why do you put up with me, or let me hog the floor. Tomcat I hate when I get like this but you eat it up. Maybe, I dunno, maybe cause you were raised around people who treated you like you were the one who was crazy insane outta their mind, or ignored you altogether. But then I come along and shit, I was raised on free-range spirit, love, and non-judgmental blah blah, and a poet AND nutty as a goober. But right off, getting to know you, and you asking ME if you’re insane. And my dyslexic brain is feeling like it actually knows what to tell me to say to you. Cause being around you, I realize, hey, I might answer him with a row of ducks that makes sense. So I did. And we both started to come ‘round and, boy howdy, what we said and did to and with each other in our poetry! And that was almost three years (three freakin’ years!) before Oahu, Diamond Head, the lagoon and that incredible honeymoon...              
             
And after almost another half year has passed, we still come up with words and gestures and gifts and surprises, that only lovers do, who were almost that till three years passed. And the big question rose up high over the macadamia trees and a smoldering volcano, while I was festooned with plumeria and hibiscus like the plumage of an exotic bird as we both bent back our heads and called out imploring to the gods, “Why did we wait so long?”...              
             
But of course, we knew the answer while the question still traveled on sound waves above the islands, as the still waters of the lagoon began to tremble, bringing the stillborn sunrise to life...              
             
And so now, I’ve calmed down and am ready to come clean with what I wanted to confess...              
             
When you took me over to your poem “Driving Channel Rains”, which I was excited about, cause you’d been under the weather and hadn’t composed anything except a piece about being missing, like an MIA message. Now here you were, about to read me your latest at that moment. So as you recited the lines, one by one, and then a second time, cause I requested an encore, I was devouring the image you had posted with your ink. Two cars racing, smashing and crashing down a rain-soaked street! The power and speed of both vehicles - black and white, even better! Cause it had me think of you and me, careening recklessly, passionately, throwing all caution to the wind! And you, reading with a tempo and tone like you had your foot down hard on the gas. And you, reaching, reaching and grabbing a handful of my...              
             
But it’s funny now that I’ve said it, cause it’s really more of an admission. And you’re gonna respond, “My tiger, that’s what I hoped you’d think.”  Aawwwww.