If I Was A Love Poet

by Rudy Francisco

I want you to bite my lips until I can no longer speak,
and then suck my ex-girlfriend’s name out of my mouth
just to make sure that she never comes up in our conversations.
I’m gonna be honest;
I’m not really a love poet.
In fact every time I try to write about love,
my hands cramp,just to show me how painful love can be.
Sometimes my pencils break
,just to prove to me that every now and then love-takes a little bit more work than you planned.
See, I heard that love is blind,
so I write all my poems in Braille.
And my poems are never actually finished because true love is endless.
See, I always believe that real love is kind of like a supermodel before she’s airbrushed.
It’s pure,and imperfect,just the way that God intended.
I’m gonna be honest;
I’m not a love poet.
But if I was to wake up tomorrow morning and decide that I really wanted to write about love…
I swear that my first poem-it would be about you.
About how I love you the same way that I learned how to ride a bike:
Scared. But reckless.
With no training wheels, or elbow pads, so my scars can tell the story of how I fell for you.
You see, I’m not really a love poet.
But if I was,
I’d write about how I see your face in every cloud and your reflection in every window.
You see, I’ve written like a million poems hoping that somehow,
maybe some way you’ll jump out of the page
and be closer to me because if you were here,right now,
I would massage your back until your skin sings songs that your lips don’t even know the words.
Until your heartbeat sounds like my last name,
and you smile like the Pacific Ocean-
I want to drink the sunlight in your skin.
If I was a love poet,
I’d write about how you have the audacity to be beautiful,
even on days when everything around you is ugly.
You see, I’d write about your eyelashes
and how they’re like violin strings that play symphonies every time you blink.
If I was a love poet,
I’d write about how I melt in front of you like an ice sculpture every time I hear the vibration in your voice.
And whenever I see your name on the caller ID,
my heart-it plays hopscotch inside of my chest.
It climbs on to my ribs like monkey bars and I feel like a child all over again.
I know this sounds strange but every now and then,
I pray that God somehow turns you back into one of my ribs
just so I would never have to spend an entire day without you.
But I swear,
I’m not a love poet.
But if I was to wake up tomorrow morning,
and decide that I really wanted to write about love,
you’re my first poem;
it would be about you.
Now, after all of that, she was like,“So how do you feel about me?”
And I said,“Let’s put it like this:I want to be your ex-boyfriend’s stuntman.
I want to do everything that he never had the courage to do, like-trust you.
I swear that when our lips touch,
I can taste the next sixty years of my life.
And some days I want to swallow stacks of your pictures just (so) you can be part of me a bit longer.
If I could,I would sample your smile,
and then I would let my heartbeat do the bass line.
We would create the greatest love song of all time.
Whenever we stand next to each other-love,
I was the only one made for you,
and you-can be at last, my Etta James.
 I’ll be all child when you’re in pain.
Or you can be candy-coated drops of rain
even though it never rains in Southern California.
And together,
we could be music.
And when my friends ask if you’re my girlfriend,
I’ll say, NO.
She is my musician.
And me…
I’m her favorite song.”