The Visitor

Lana Cortes

Anticipation swims
across my face
much to your delight
Soaked in shadow
Drop the curtain
I hold the bottle
You hold the rocks
Heaven can wait
for lavender hair
Skin of cashmere
Voice a velvet flame
Set fire to
my visions of you
with a misaligned truth
Penetrate me
with just a glance
Slither in & coil my limbs
Crawl beneath the surface
Hold your gaze
as you beat still below my sternum
Ribs to shelter
unrequited lethal tongues
An afternoon dream
through dusk’s fleeting embrace
Taint my walls
& flee
just before I’m free enough
to withhold my submission
You come & you go
Slip in & out
like a demon’s whisper
Craft mountains between us
& convince me
that hope still breathes
should I go to great lengths
just to move them
Yet the world spins on its axis
pleading fate for its ability
to keep up with you
So foolish a girl
to think I might outrun
the tides most swift
or the forces designing them
To think
I have loved you
& unloved you
more times
than I have touched you
Don’t you know I go crazy
only when you take me there?
If nothing else
promise me this
That you will never
ask me to trust
a man
who smiles
as he swears
he never felt it