Knox Just Friends
The air tilts when someone lies
about loving someone.
Maybe it’s because when
you love someone completely, it moves
through you, replacing the pillars
of your structure, reformulating
your chemistry to make you
a new person.
I wouldn’t know firsthand
but I have to believe
love has that power
or the poets wouldn’t write
of it like worshipers on their knees
before an altar of a benevolent deity.
So you can press your breath
into the shape of deceit
about loving someone
all you want;
some part of you that remembers
their touch; the angle of their jaw
in the right light; the turn
of their ankle; the way they sat
while driving; will scream
out against this betrayal.
I want that. I want to love
someone with such fullness
of my self that my body
sings the undeniable
truth of it always.