I am the balloon you're batting into the air 

You up-lift me

Catch me when I'm falling

I'm up in the air, it's my nature

You're happy to hold me and

Happy to see me fly 

 I keep reaching for you when it hurts.

It isn't right, I'm taking you by the handful because you want to help

Even though you're Aspirin and I need Penicillin you aren't

The right kind of thing for the kind of hurt I am

Maybe even Morphine when I need something else or

At the very least Vitamin C, good but not the thing when what I have is a broken bone.

I have to remind myself to love what you are

Not take you for a panacaea when what you are is more than a palliative but

In terms of the hurt a palliative is all you can be

Even though sometimes hospice is better than

Chasing down an unpromised cure, that's an ending

I should read cold-eyed over the symptoms I wrote down

 The tree outside my window

Turned yellow overnight

And it's like the sunlight landed there

Decided Home was the leaves

One thing I want:

Sweep you up with me

Pull you along running with our hands joined

A little faster than prudent

Smiles open, breathing with the joy of it

I'll tangle on trees, you'll

Stumble but keep up with me

We'll suddenly whirl, arms wrapped

Holding bodies in a tight circle spinning

Dizzy enough to fall down because

Dancers we aren't

Not yet anyway

But we can still catch the feeling of music

In our bodies surging out into motion and sound

That's how it Is sometimes

When I say love affair I mean that

Sensation

That glowing pull-you-into-me

Like the way you hugged my arm in that coffee shop

A surprise and really feeling

Love, raw

You and me in it until

There wasn't any coffee shop or cars lined up that day I heard there was so much traffic

There was only you and me

Smiling

Just as it is, that second tree

Knowing it's there is sometimes enough

But heart pounding I also want the stars

The rivers cold and even the

Itch of seeding grass brushing legs, sticking in wool socks

I want to lie with you

Just as we didn't beneath that infinity sky

Yes, we'll plant a tree

No fast alder but a Cedar-

The kind that takes a hundred years to grow

But while it's growing I

Can teach you lindy hop and blues and

Swing you out and in

Until we do it beautifully

Every thing I've ever said to you

I meant it too 

Which is why I couldn't tell you

Walk away

Why I sent that poetry I wrote 

Dishonest if I don't share something true

I keep coming back, you said

Which makes you less afraid 

Which makes you trust my running away I think as

Running from me and not you

But running fast

Reaching back

Hands outstretched, always

Believing that a sapling grows

A sapling sways 

But not so much a tree, grown

We'll sway instead, beneath it