Girl In A Bus Poem by A Waltz For Zizi

I believe I would be happy
to find myself in your palms
painfully unfolded and read
on the inside
unintentionally tasting your
breath
your fingers drawing
invisible lines on my skin.

What kind of girl you must be
the kindness, the things that make me go
somewhere else when I'm with you
into another world that doesn't
know anyone but you and me
a quiet place where we can talk
about the rain that in it's fall
misses your lips because of my umbrella
or about nothing at all.
This letter makes me fear
what I might do to you
if my words aren't perfect
if there are too few or too many of them
before the intended phrase
before I tell you
how I've fallen in love with you.

Because I don't know your name, your story
I love you even more.
I imagine stories about you
about your heart that
must have Russian origins
your lips French, your skin Norwegian.
I draw my line
closer and closer to you.
I put the first letter in your palm
to be sure it reaches you,
but if it reaches you
it also means it leaves me.

Your breath
being palpable to my lips
it's because of the silence
because we barely speak
because no one writes about you
on Saturdays on white paper
no one worries you might not come
on Monday for the buss.
I realize that I cannot go anywhere
but in your palms.
I'm just sleepless again
as I've been since January,
and if I have to think of you
I write. It's better to remember
my thoughts. I can come back to them
if anything disturbs me
in some intent to make me
forgetful of you.

Life consists also in forgetting
that's why I write about you
everything that will hold you
correctly into my memories.

I'm ashamed to tell you I love you
without proof.
I keep thinking to myself
If I've not been too gentle with my letters
if I've not shown you myself
what I'm capable of
what actually goes through my mind.
Challenge me
to face
whatever monstrosity hides
in your heart.

Sometimes I hear you letters out loud
as you are here, reading them
from the opposite side of the room
and I bound to the ground
unable to get up yo touch you
to make this loneliness tolerable.
Perhaps I've become too dependent on you
on your letters
but isn't this what love is about,
after all, I've fallen in love with you
didn't I? !

The same 'thing' knocks at my door
and brings me another one of your letters.
It's still warm from your fingers.
If I could only preserve it like this
so that every time I touch it
I touch you too.
Before the world, comes you, your letters,
so I have to read them and remember
every word, everything that
threatens to be erased if I ever
happen to lose them, even though
you know I handle them as I would
handle your heart.

How I seek your scent
in the letters you send
the trail of your fingerprints

How I seek your scent
in the buses we ride
a glimpse of your reflection in the window
the sound of your breathing
the warmth you leave behind

How I seek out your scent on the sheets
the trail of your fingernalis on my skin
the warmth of your breath just above my lips

when you look away
I secretly push into my lungs
with both hands
the air that you exhale

I want to try out
your lips
and write to you
letters
that sprint toward
your heart
that peck at your
door
that unravel me
to you
most of me or
at least
what you don't know yet.

Sometimes I feel we have the same room
and to each other we are invisible and
can only write letters to speak.

I write to you
from far away
just like I would write
to a lover
painfully
and perhaps too timidly
of the things
I want to say.

I think to myself I must not
add you into my world, into my
poems. You are too great for that, but then
I have traveled so late to see you
so I can confide this love in you.
I trust you don't have any other letters to read
only this from me, that reproduces my thoughts
on a Saturday. Apparently I'm the stranger
that says hello to you in the morning
a man, although better said a boy
that believes you are beautiful.
This is not a joke.
I didn't write this to be deceptive.
I am whatever I am, but I'm not a liar.

Perhaps April will not stand between
us as well. I understand words.
Your letters belonging to me means
you belong to me too. In a cruel way
you can say I rip pieces of you
sitting at my desk.
You write your courage, however
I cannot say the same. My fear
is that you will actually
grow fond of me, let me loose
and like an animal dying of thirst
I will come to you to kiss you
and in terror you will turn your head away.
I cannot say I don't understand.
I am used to this retreat.
There is nothing I am. Too thin, too poor, too stupid, too lazy
too afraid to ever rise to my true height.
I somehow love the wounds in your heart
the price love requires. You have lived
with courage, purity, freedom, devotion.
I have not. I have cheated myself.
I have lived accidentally.
I have fought against others
when I should have fought against myself.
But then something else happened,
I met you, and I'm certain that I love you
and for that I want to learn how to fight myself
how to understand you.
This is not arrogance, but modesty.
Anyone else, whatever he beholds
cannot love as I love you
from just a glance that you have given me.

I've prolonged this more than I should have.
I have no idea where this
abundance of foolishness is coming from,
perhaps I am trying to make you
kiss this piece of paper and
from over here feel it too.