For You, A Million Times Over Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

I am a fool and I admit,

But today, I wager everything that I own:

My soul, though shabby

My face, sallow and heavy

My hands, calloused and unsightly

My feet, and direct it towards you

I am a fool and I suffer it gladly

For you a million times over

-

By the terrace, I glanced at the moon

During a starless sky, but still constellated

I am reminded of your eyes aglow,

Your face, tender and perfectly-sculpted

Other-worldly, as if my soul is swoon over by

A whole wave of nostalgia, of ardor

As frenzied a man should be, I am

And this amaranthine desire will never be extinguished

For in the stars, though not a single star is out tonight,

I have determined my fate not more than a decree

But a calling – and this is to devote myself amorously

For you, a million times over.

-

And so this could mean

Losing the warmth in my breath,

Effacing the crimson of my diaphanous lips,

Siphoning the strength, the potency of my arms

The accuracy of my stern eyes astride past your pictures –

But this I do not care, I wager everything

For I am a fool, my mind is foolhardy

But my heart is not, again, a million times over

Or not so a million lies and leonine phantasms;

Forever, yes? But not so forever to live through time

And time alone – I will hold on to what I feel towards you

And direct it, as an aeroplane directed towards the stark sky,

I will take every road, every endeavor until I get to you, however,

If you let me do this, a million times over.

-

I may forget your face, your grace

And how you bring senility across a randy room

With one lithe prance, as if frolicking under the Sun,

This I am sure, if they would not notice,

I will, for I am a fool –

And a fool that I have been, from January to December

In every year, every time and every second that breathes

Through the glass of time cemented within sleep,

I will plunge into this eternal gamble with no hesitation,

I am as determined as a poised lion,

I prey not upon you, but upon myself,

That I spare another blunder I might commit but please,

Do forgive me, for I am a blundering fool,

Perhaps every wrong step leads to the right one,

And this I am sure, under the barren azure

That you will be reassured that there’d be no frozen promise,

No forked tongue, no flimsy hands and even flimsier excuses

No stalling within ostensible premises; shall I say it again with a certain desire?

That there is a fire that never dies, and more of this you’d come to decipher

That for you, I’d do it a million times over

-

And if you reject me in every form,

And close the doors and leave me with a searing storm;

The tempest may batter me,

And the rejection may reduce me into jaundice

I care less, and I could care less for I am a fool

A fool that says one thing and does another,

But then, I have come to be acquainted with

A harsh loss that not a word in ubiquity could ever revoke

And so I utter mundanely, leisurely every promise

But act exquisitely, firmly,

To enthrone you to a seat of erudition,

I will extol you like a fancied name of a diamond

Underneath the rain that felt like shards of crystals on my skin,

I will do so forever, and that is to love you – sometimes, no,

Perhaps forever, but not forever as if to claim that I will live

To witness how one goes from callow to decrepit,

But this I am sure with every breath, every saunter

Every gasp that churns the viscera,

That I will do so completely, with everything I wager –

For I am a fool and as a fool should say,

For you, a million times over.