love – Ishara K. Agostini

December 30, 2014ishara No Comments

Love Like a Mango

Dec 22, 2014

There was a fullness to our love

like that mango just within your reach
unblemished and warm
falling straight into your palm
eaten under the shade of the tree
juice dripping down your elbow

temporary in its bliss,
but perfect in that moment.

February 10, 2013ishara No Comments

Tensions

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I am beginning to name my knots.

Let one in my neck be Wanting

from every time I clenched my jaw after breathing in her scent.

Let the tightness in my shoulder be Disappointment who is also called Shame

a product of still wanting him to touch me

even though we both know he shouldn't

and being caught between recoiling and not.

Finally, the chronic ache in my back will be Distance

from consistently loving people that are too far away.

In the same way one muscle contracts as the other relaxes

these pains are interconnected

and I know that all these names mean the same thing:

I hold on for far too long and I need to learn to let go.

December 20, 2012ishara No Comments

Dear Beloved

An open letter to
everyone I’ve ever convinced myself I loved.

I am still sorry.

I fear that you were just the

first in a long line

of men I will be

all too willing to bury

my loneliness in.

II.

Now that I’ve figured

that you wronged me, I am not

ready to forgive.

III.

I loved you more than

you knew, but you were still right:

it was not enough.

IV.

I have learned what the

infinite tastes like but

I still haven’t learned

that people can’t be

fixed because they
aren’t broken,

or that I deserve

better.

July 16, 2012ishara No Comments

Coming Out

I read that we never get

to stop coming out.

Well I came out to myself the other day,

Stepped out of my glass closet for a
moment,

Well, not so much a class closet than one
of those

Cabinets old people use to store their
china

I am transparent, the way I hoard your gifts,

Your presents, your presence.

I never tell the ones who need to hear it
the most.

Instead I let it rest on my lips the way I wish
yours would

And flitter round my tongue the way I want
yours to,

But I can’t.

Because I only tell you in sighs I hope you
read

Or maybe see it in my gazes that linger too
long

Or notice how I touch you too often, sit
too close,

Smile too much.

I am transparent in my cabinet as I watch your hands

Dance across tabletops.

But I would never come out to you.

I much rather confess to strangers on the
internet,

Or in ambiguously phrased verse,

That I dream about you at night

And I think of you all day

And while I may joke about others,

Everything I say I love about them,

Just reminds me of you.

July 10, 2012ishara No Comments

An Education

I want to learn the

language your body speaks,

Whispered by your hips

as you move,

Decode the ciphers

between your sighs.

I have learned the

angle of your slouch,

The spread of your

fingers

And the coil of your

curls.

There is a science to

you I have not yet learned.

I have learned the

contours of your face

The locations of your

moles

The longitude and

latitude of your dimples

The length and breadth

of your smile

Better than I ever

learned geography.

Maybe I’d map those

contours of your face

(Which I’ve already

committed to memory)

but I can’t.

To recreate the

brownness of your skin

is more motivation than three years of art

Ever were.

Writing commits you to

memory.