Nothing Lingers Under My Fingernails as Deeply as You do.

So I taste you in my nervousness
and hold you to my face. When my eyes cast
unseen shadows beneath the floorboards,
I wish signatures were written darker
so that they'd press onto my skin
when read. No one else gives notice
to the dirt that hides under
everyone's eyelids, hazing the glow present,
tracing the trail from your basement floor
to heaven. That dirt is so specked with oil
and smiles without hearts that no wince or wink
could blink it out. I have blotted so many
diseased pens without a name or note,
but you, you with the screws
in your wrist, crack your words out in ink that
no other hands could spin or spiral.
And if only they kept an encyclopedia of time
passed between outward glances from you to
me and me to you and all of the cracked
and blooming kisses we've picked
right off the stems.