the emotional equivalent of watching paint dry

I’m sorry for ever looking at you
like you were anything less

like you were anything less
than the best or worst thing to ever happen

anything less
than a meteor crushing full-force
into the fallible planet that is my soul
and leaving an indent larger
than the hole in my center,
a fertile and infinite crater
if it were possible to carve out that place in me
where love is born, incubated, and grown

but even if you were to gorge on that messy chunk of me,
you’d replace it with the magic that makes birds fly
you’d make it my own walden pond,
the treasure in a maze only I could get to

I’m sorry for ever looking at you
like you were less than
a garden to wander through
a thicket dense with wonder and lust
a curiosity more opaque than the mystery of breath