i've already written you love letters

i've sent you words in lines

like soldiers to beseige you

to keep you up at night

to keep you certain you've got something worth guarding

i've already written you love letters

and snuck behind your castle walls

to sketch your statues and alleyways

i've taken note

unabashed

of your beauty and disease

and while you were rebuilding your battlements and towers

i was preparing medicines and tinctures for you

because some day this war's gotta end

our soldiers are in love

and they're tired of cleaning letters off the arrows sent to kill them

they want each other's arms

i've already written you love letters

as though they were the pamphlets for pockets of belief

that need the eyes that read them to exist

i've already written you love letters

and postered all over your town

all the vowels and consonants that add up to me

i spraypainted

tenderly

your monuments of self-assuredness

and stole the street signs that demarcated the territory i shouldn't see

and while your police force pursued me

i left trails of honesty and good intention

because one day you'll stop pretending

you don't want my wild abandon

on the streets of your body

i've already written you love letters

and strapped cylinders of fuel to my desire for you

and tried to find ways to decode your secret language

because you asked me to

with the force of forests growth

with a sweetness like the hum of bees

you asked me with lips that shaped themselves

like heartbeats against my neck

you'd written me already

with your hopes and pauses

and glances of emboldened spring flowers

you'd sculpted sentiment out of the dirt

of taking chances and lusty lungeing

how could i refuse you such a simple request?

so i've already written you love letters

and now they sleep next to you

instead of me