if i could write about love i could write forever about the stones i keep in my palms stolen off the lake michigan shoreline the way they mimic the work lines of your fingertips how they slid down my arm that night in the burnt edge photograph that is your room all sepia tones and warm wood seared into the crooks of my memory if i could write about love it would be sour and metallic a mouth full of quarters left marinating in battery acid it would be my hand shattering through the glass of the minivan windshield as it flips three times over four lanes of traffic, it would be my mouth so shocked it forgets to scream it would be you in your blue denim shirt from across the table green eyes like marbles all glassy and glazed hiding behind a smile that ruins me into a pile on the hardwood floor if i could write about love forever i would be worn out by the age of twenty three having grown tired of trying to come up with everything i need to tell you i couldn’t squeeze out every word i need to say chew on my bottom lip till it’s a swollen purple bruise i am talking to you but i am never talking to you i am sick of writing forever about love when i’d much rather hold your face in the palms of my hands and tell you i mean it.