How To Know

I googled "how to know if you love someone"

Because I don't want a face to give me the answers

No credibility to tear away like the edges of a styrofoam cup

And wikihow provided me with seven simple steps

To decipher the whispers

What does your gut tell you?

I don't know. 

I was told the only talking organs were the head and the heart

I don't speak gut

Just too much guts

Selling my secrets and life story since its start

Whenever I debate my feelings I sense my gut grow fists

Punches my ribs and chest

So I guess it's telling me that 

I'm in pain

being destroyed by my inner workings 

I've swallowed too many words 

each a match that my burning blood has set ablaze.

Shrieking

I need to quiet my heart, 

put my mind to sleep 

because the echoes of memories are piercing my skull.

Be objective.

Is this the point when I laugh?

Be objective

When talking about love

I thought the whole point was defying reason. 

Letting yourself carve off your ventricles is never the rational thing to do. 

The moment I opened the blinds from my eyes 

Let you glimpse into my soul 

I made myself vulnerable, 

let the sniper of rejection find the perfect target. 

The authorities are coming for me

I've been holding my emotions hostage for far too long

Once I become objective, 

once I shoot them all down

They'll have no reason to keep me alive. 

The negotiations will end

So will conversations 

and poetry 

and the listening to cheap love songs 

and feeling 

Something.

Consider how you think and feel when you are around him.

I don't think. 

I try not to feel. 

I've stapled on a poker face. 

Laughing at the jokes hoping that I'm not one of them.

Fighting not to debate why he's stopped touching me--

when we're with our friends, 

in a dog-pile, 

how he avoids my flesh now. 

Is he trying not to lead me on, 

or trying to lead himself off? 

I exile the questions disguised as thoughts, 

Senses and sentiments.

I wander into subtext 

trying with a reflex 

to reflect some of my inner-workings, 

jerking him back to the time we say is forbidden, 

hoping I can tell him I'm hurting by smirking.

Observe

I'm tired of watching love like it's an exhibit at an aquarium. 

I've bought scuba gear. 

I've written love poems

and had kisses 

and been told the sacred words 

but yet I've never gotten my feet wet. 

Observing and obsessing are integrated. 

It's my turn to touch, 

To touch and feel. 

I've had all the symptoms, 

infect me with the disease

I don't know if I'm projecting it all

Hoping if I throw enough punches I can transcend the glass.

You tell me not to bother

Once I break through it will just flood

I'll probably drown. 

But I think I know how to swim.

How do they feel?

That's a different problem entirely.

Tell the person how you feel.

First I have to figure that out.

Imagine how you would feel if you lost them.

I think I already did.

But I trying to find them

Amongst moments and mementos

Places and promises

And see if I'm there too.