Unsafe Space

If I told you that this thing

that you told me  

to keep hidden away

has become fluid gold and is

flowing out of every

crack and crevice, looking

for a mold to pour itself into,

to show me what it wants

to be, if I looked at you in one

of our stolen afternoon

encounters of stolen moments

and simply told you

“I love you,” what would you do

with my words?

 

Would you water them,

tend them, give them space

to grow; or pull them like weeds?

Would you take them in

your hands, for contemplation,

or leave them to drift away

into a vacuum of non-response?

 

would you let me place them

in a locket over your heart, or

explore them only in layered verse

that hides their power?

Would you paint a corner of

your world with them? Weigh

them, measure them, calculate

a price for them?

 

Would you

retreat to a safer place out beyond

the edge of so many cups of coffee

and so much that was always

left unsaid, unspoken,

between two people from places

in the heart as different as

those that forged wills as stubborn

as those carried by the two of us?

 

Or would you be willing to create

a completely, irreversibly,

unsafe space with me? Could

you look at me and say,

“These are the hands, and those

are the words, I have been waiting

my whole life

to hold?”