a letter written in all caps, one i will send

Here is a letter written on a Friday, an artifact of my tender thoughts at the ten oclock hour. This is time compressed to line, unpicked apples, unsailed waves, unswimmed reefs, unbought curtains, unbaked pies and turkeys and skins. This is a promissory note for hands unheld, a scream swallowed by pillows. This is the performance track, theatrical adlibs splattered like islands in the ocean of meter and snare. This is a combination for unlocking secret hatches. The lilt of words we know we’re too young to speak, tongues we suck for hush. This is a wordless plea for a throat throbbing under your fist, a grateful twist of swollen lip, a scribble cryptic of things I’ll never say. This is a gift. This is honest. My fingertips finding familiar the braille of your tight curls, my thumb on your eyebrow. I once heard a poet say that it’s unfair: that in the moment of loving, you become hard, and I become soft. That I must wet and open. That I collapse around you, that I cave around your fingers. Please don’t be cruel when I let myself be split by you. This is a letter. This is rare. Tell me what color your moon is. Ask me the colors of mine. Learn the shapes of my flag, the depths of my fear, the weight of the ash in my lungs. This is a Friday morning epistle, pitched at the sky.