.

I want to melt purple violets and yellow roses into the arch of your back

and run daisies over the course of your childhood,

rest my hand limp on the porcelain of your cheek and mouth Sanskrit words

into the apex of your breath so that our souls can remember the first lifetime that they met,

plant acorns into the skin of your upper lip to catch autumn

every time I look into your eyes and see summer caving in,

brush oxygen over the concaves of your collar bones

so that next time I kiss you there, I can still breathe,

sketch waterfalls onto the left side of your stomach with blue and gold colored pencils

to remember the source of the ocean I tread water in every time you’re near,

drip raindrops from your eyes to irrigate the sand dunes of my deserted heart

that hasn’t felt this pure since birth,

drench star constellations in the vortex of your tongue

to see infinity every time we lock lips,

dance on the thresholds of your earlobes,

sing to the rhythm of your heart beat’s melody,

compose symphonies of your laughs,

fly to the inner walls of your thoughts and attach them to my thoughts

with a bungee cord so that the elasticity of eternity doesn’t shatter

the moments we spend together in this lifetime with these bodies.

.

And all I ask in return

is that you hold me like the miracle of divinely heard redemption songs

on the crux of the morning sunrise.

I wish on every star that you’ll come

throw rocks at my window.

Every picturesque daydream, every self-fulfilling prophesy from a bystander

that morphs into a lifetime epiphany,

every lush mountain range,

every poem, every poem, every poem

I want to share with you eternally.

.

But sometimes, fate chuckles in my eyelids and washes fear away

so love can linger on the dashboard of my daydreams

as reality gives birth to infinity

reminding me that

you are my soul mate,

and the feeling in my gut like a dirty dishtowel wringing out restless doubt

was but an uttering of the inner workings of destiny.

.

I fell in love with you the first time that we met.

I want to wrap enlightenment into a box of gold

and place it in the palm of your hand

so that the rest of my life can start tomorrow

with you.

 

 

 

Caroline Rothstein is a New York City-based writer, performer, body empowerment advocate, and educator. She has been performing spoken word poetry and facilitating workshops at colleges, schools, and performance venues throughout the United States for over a decade. Her motto is “From Adversity Comes Triumph,” empowering youth and adults alike to embrace self-confidence and authenticity. Recognized internationally for sharing her experience having and recovering from an eating disorder, her video “Fat” was recently Tweeted by Lady Gaga. She hosts the YouTube series “Body Empowerment” and is President of the Board of Directors for Mental Fitness, Inc., a national mental health and youth education nonprofit. Her work has appeared in Narratively, The Jewish Daily Forward, xoJane, Huffington Post, and elsewhere. She has a B.A. in Classical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. For more information, please visit: www.carolinerothstein.com.