I will never be satisfied

The poetry is made up of the way
the hair stands up on the back of my neck
the way I can listen to his voice for hours
I could beg him to tell me a story or read me one and
I'm dying for the way he does.
I can't quite replicate the feel of his hands on my face
and throat.

"Tell me when you are lonely,"
she says.
"I wish I was there or you were here.
I'd run my hands through your hair and
hold your hand.
We'd be pack together with the cats and the dogs."
I don't tell her that I'm thinking about long red hair
twining through my fingers as I fall asleep and
I don't tell her that I'm thinking about buzzing tattoo guns
and acoustic songs via Pandora at one in the morning
because she knows
and I know.

I tell her about feeling fire down the iron of my spine.
I tell her how Pablo Neruda makes sense for the first time,
how he feels reachable now.
How I don't feel like stone anymore.
Ugh, I tell her, I was never built to feel things.
I was formed in chaos and he throws that feeling of order into everything.
She is laughing and crying
because even hours away,
through snow and miles
she knows when my hands are shaking.

Even though I'm trying,
I can't reproduce the feeling of hands and hair and lips and teeth
roving and roaming over my skin.