I do not want to be intoxicated by love.

I do not wish to dive drunkenly into the waves of consuming passion.

And perhaps I am too sober for you.

Perhaps my hands, and my body, are resting silence.

Perhaps when you come running,

you will see me only breathing, or standing.

Not that I do not want to run,

Or won’t run myself…

I love you.

There is simplicity in that.

And if you will let me show you my ways,

I will paint you in the rainbow hue

Beneath my fingertips.

I will bless you with my lips

And run circuits from the heavens into your soul.

Do not let me move too fast,

For men, and women,

Must move slow in love,

And the temple of her residence must be incensed and prayed before,

The long hallways swept,

The lamps turned warm to welcome her visitors.

Bodies do not come ready for you;

Not always.

In the case of a woman, they are a site of worship,

A place to come for holy sacrament,

Not to ransack and set fire to.

Many men have not realized this,

And so their love, and passions

Are shallow,

And strike a wall wherein their fear and their emotion

Become consumption,

And love never touches them;

Not fully.

And they leave emptied, lost, and a little more alone.

Let this not be that type of love,

For I will not invite such a visitor.

You must bow here,

And make amends with the circling doves

And whistle for the sweet dreamer

Who lives inside these walls.

For it is in her garments

That you will become tangled,

Breathing the swallowed waters of her soul,

Until you choke up your unforgiveness

Until you remember why you were running,

Until you know the lone answers to your single, silent, innermost questions.

God is in a woman. If you can pray,

As if she is,

You may find a lifetime of blessings

In her flowering-open, forever skin.