The Sun and Her Flowers Read Online Free PDF Page B

anticipation
    excited and terrified for what’s to come
    he smiles
    knows this is what satisfaction looks like
    i am a switchboard
    he is the circuits
    my hips move with his—rhythmic
    my voice isn’t my own when i moan—it is music
    like fingers on a violin string
    he sparks enough electricity within me to power a city
    when we finish i look right at him
    and tell him
    that was magic

    when i walked into the coffee shop and saw you. my body did not react like it had the first time. i waited for my heart to abandon me. for my legs to freeze up. to fall to the ground crying at your sight. nothing happened. there was no connection or movement inside when we locked eyes. you looked like a regular guy with your regular clothes and regular coffee. nothing profound about you. i don’t give myself enough credit. my body must have cleansed itself of you long ago. must have gotten tired of me behaving like i’d lost the best thing to have happened. and wrung the insecurities out while i was busy wallowing in pity. that day i had no makeup on. my hair was all over the place. i was wearing my brother’s old t-shirt and pajama pants. yet i felt like a gleaming siren. a mermaid. i did a little dance in the car while driving home. even though we were both under the same roof of that coffee shop. i was still solar systems away from you.

    the orange trees refused to blossom
unless we bloomed first
    when we met
    they wept tangerines
    can’t you tell
the earth has waited its whole life for this
    - celebration

    why am i always running in circles
    between wanting you to want me
    and when you want me
    deciding it is too emotionally naked
    for me to live with
    why do i make loving me so difficult
    as if you should never have to witness
    the ghosts i have tucked under my breast
    i used to be more open
    when it came to matters like this my love
    - if only we’d met when i was that willing
    i could not contain myself any longer
    i ran to the ocean
    in the middle of the night
and confessed my love for you to the water
    as i finished telling her
    the salt in her body became sugar

    (ode to sobha singh’s sohni mahiwal)
    i say maybe this is a mistake. maybe we need more than love to make this work .
    you place your lips on mine. when our faces are buzzing with the ecstasy of kissing you say tell me that isn’t right . and as much as i’d like to think with my head. my racing heart is all that makes sense. there. right there is the answer you’re looking for. in my loss of breath. my lack of words. my silence. my inability to speak means you’ve filled my stomach with so many butterflies that even if this is a mistake. it could only be right to be this wrong with you.
    a
    man
    who cries
    - a gift

    if i’m going to share my life with a partner
    it would be foolish not to ask myself
    twenty years from now
    is this person going to be
    someone i still laugh with
    or am i just distracted by their charm
    do i see us evolving into
    new people by the decade
    or does the growing ever come to a pause
    i don’t want to be distracted
    by the looks or the money
    i want to know if they pull
    the best or the worst out of me
    deep at the core are our values the same
    in thirty years will we still
    jump into bed like we’re twenty
    can i picture us in old age
    conquering the world
    like we’ve got young blood
    running in our veins
    - checklist
    what is it with you and sunflowers he asks
    i point to the field of yellow outside
    sunflowers worship the sun i tell him
    only when it arrives do they rise
    when the sun leaves
    they bow their heads in mourning
    that is what the sun does to those flowers
    it’s what you do to me
    - the sun and her flowers

    sometimes
    i stop myself from
    saying the words out loud
    as if leaving my mouth too often
    might wear them down
    - i love you
    the most important conversations
    we’ll have are with our fingers
    when yours nervously graze mine
    for the first