"Exploring American thought, democracy, culture, religion, Haiti, and the Black Atlantic to better understand the past and future of the Americas and the world–toward human flourishing."
It’s been three to four months since I last wrote a love poem. I write poetry when I’m genuinely inspired; I don’t usually force myself to write poems when there’s no source of inspiration or mental stimulation. The new poem below articulates a constellation of emotions, memories, sensations, and feelings. I should also state that the poem is less an attempt to describe love than an attempt to capture a particular moment when attraction, intimacy, passion, memory, and desire converged.
“The Way of Your Skin”
Your skin draws me near, but it is your smile that keeps me attached. I breathe in your scent and smell the fragrance of a passion that will never fade. You take me on an adventure free of worries, a journey no one could ever bring to an end.
I look at you as though we are witnessing the apocalypse of a thousand memories, all of them knitted together into one unforgettable moment. And when I touch your skin, I discover something softer than the rays of the sun, a warmth that makes me want to stay forever
Let us dance to heal together, to forget the wounds of love, the loneliness of faded passion, to forge a new union that embraces both our pain and our joy.
Let us walk into the dancehall tonight. Your fingers run through my hair. I’ll play your favorite song. Every beat becomes a new vow. Every touch against your skin sings the love we cannot hide. Every line, every word, every chord celebrates the miracle of us. The saxophone sees you and plays your favorite rhythm. May this dance fill our hearts tonight.
Our shadows shall pass. Every tender touch binds our lips as one. Let the music move through our bodies, let the song set us free, the rhythm of a single heartbeat may knit two souls into one.
My mind remembers those suspended moments we created, those instances when we surrendered to become one, the hours we lived inside each other’s dream to stop time.
You said to me: make love to me— so I may embrace tenderness and gentleness, so I may savor your kiss, not just the climax of love, I want our bodies to experience the passion of our soul, the attention of our hearts, as if we fill our senses with a thousand flavors of love.
When we kiss, our lips fuse. Our tongues hesitate, silence speaks as if time helds its breath stretches of stillness and eternity between passion and knowledge before exploring the depths of each other, and the dream of becoming one.
The way I look at you when your feet begin moving toward me is not a casual glance. It’s as if time slows just enough for my eyes to receive you fully. I catch every movement, every subtle gesture, and somehow each one feels unforgettable.
My eyes meet your steps halfway, as if there is a quiet understanding between them. Each movement you make arrives before you do. Every turn you take feels inviting — not loud, not forced, just a gentle pull.
When you walk, there’s a natural cadence to you, a rhythm that doesn’t try, yet commands attention. A quiet confidence. A steady grace.
You carry yourself in such beautiful alignment that your whole body seems to move in agreement with itself, nothing out of place, nothing uncertain. There’s harmony in your shape, unity in your stride, balance in every intentional step.
I find myself watching, gently, tenderly. It is presence, companionship, unity.
My eyes lose control, not just because you’re beautiful, but because the way you move feels meaningful, resonant, eternal.
And in that space where your steps meet my eyes, everything quiets, everything aligns, and I am fully present with you.
I wrote this poem for you and your valentine. Whether you share your life with someone special or not, you still can celebrate the beauty and goodness of love. Happy Valentine’s Day to you!💘
“Roses Remember the Vow” (A Poem for Valentines)
Last night I dreamed the moon leaned down and caressed our bodies, while our eyes rested gently upon each other, as if time itself stood still.
The river by the lake reached outward, joining hands with nearby dancing birds, and all of nature seemed to smile, blessing the quiet miracle of us.
We watched the world move softly around us, breathing the fragrance of two dozen roses waving gently in the wind — a reminder that this was the moment our hearts first melted into one, the moment our souls became inseparable when we whispered, “I do.”
We laughed like lovers discovering a hidden treasure, we danced as if the night itself played our first song, and we remembered the first promise, the first vow spoken in trembling joy, and the kiss that sealed our very first Valentine.
How am I supposed to go on without you? You slipped into distance, into a place where our eyes will no longer meet, where our gazes cannot find each other anymore.
I will miss your smile, the way it greeted me at dawn, arriving before my first morning breath, my words whispering your name across the room. I will miss your voice when you are not near, especially in the quiet moments when we are just by ourselves, when I reach for you and you are not there.
I will miss holding your hand, letting my fingers memorize your face, learning again and again the language of your skin, breathing in the familiar scent of your body.
I am still trying to understand how love can ask someone to forget, to leave without thinking twice, how two hearts can stand at a crossroads— the crossroads of joy and pain— and choose different futures. I loved you beyond forever, if such a place even still exists in our world.
Are you leaving to find freedom, to forget what once held us together? Or are you going away to escape the presence of our love?
Maybe this love was not meant to stay forever, but it was real while it lived. Maybe what we shared was not permanent, but it was true while it breathed. And even if it could not last, it was strong enough to leave a forever-shaped space inside of us.
I traded eternity for your presence. Loving you became an act of rebellion, rewriting every law I knew costing me everything I had bending the universe against me.
I carved two hearts into the sun so the world would know our love exists. I sailed a hundred thousand miles through warring storms and thunder just to find you, just to bring you home.
I traveled backward through time, changing myself to return to the first steps we ever took together, to know what you were thinking, to relive our first kiss exactly as it fell.
I think of nothing at all so I can be free to think only of you. I stayed perfectly still to quiet the anxiety in your heart. I tasted the sweetness of your soul inside a dream, just to be sure you would be alright.
As a bee searches for nectar, she trusts the flower that nourishes her. As a parrot learns the language of humans, she risks error, the fragment of sound: mispronunciation, misunderstanding, the ache of being heard imperfectly.
I search for you in hidden places, not because I do not desire safety, but because love has taught me risk— how to loosen my grip on comfort, how to call surrender devotion, how to rename control as connection.
I give myself away in small poetic gestures, sacred ways to hold you once more, to touch your face, If only for a moment you refuse to name.
Why do you keep hiding your face from me, when you know this love, though imperfect, is honest, and stands naked before your eyes, asking only to be seen?
You choose secrecy. I make my love known. You choose silence. I answer with poetry. You love in whispers and call it protection. I write you love letters and risk the world knowing my name through yours.
You let this love burn inside me without asking how much it hurts— how this passion unravels me, how heavily it weighs, how much of myself it consumes.
Like a house set ablaze from the entrance room, like a burning bush that devours my flesh.
It suffocates my breath, drains my ability to love anew, to write the poems that would keep you living.