Softball has always been your sport.
I can tell by the way
your orange freckles frame your infinite welts
You always laugh when the ball crashes into your soft body
and I think
"Ouch...why are they called softballs?"
but you just laugh and say
"It's all part of the game,
"you get used to it."

I wonder if you got yelled at a lot
when you were a kid.
I know your daddy yells at me
sometimes.
I know he's certainly made me
cry.
I guess it's in your blood.

Transverse waves create a medium
where antinodes are congruent to nodes
and your twin moves faster than the speed of light.
you no longer know my name
Or maybe you never did
Was this all a dream?

I want to know what you're like
hot and sweaty and aching and wanting more and
wanting love:
love through ice,
love through water,
love through love,
because that's all you ever say you ever want at the end of a long day.
I guess it all makes sense.

I yearn for you to beg
for yourself because you deserve
selfishness is merely self-care
yet America sexualizes women
when they are killed every breath take of
Afghanistan.

Do you know it makes me sad
when you put away your needs?
I know how much you love fried chicken;
It's in your biography.

Don't deny yourself life.
It shuts down my world because
my world consists of particles of your hair
and deepest wounds and peeled skin so badly you ask God for forgiveness;
We all know how sunburnt redheads get
if that's their natural hair color
But I've always been able to see right through you
so that, I know, is true.

Don't deny yourself life.
Throw on your dirt-smeared sliding pants
let's go get some more
you can teach me how to pitch or throw
even though my favorite thing to do
Is simply to watch You.

I'll let you be my coach
If you agree to hold your patience
as long as you hold your poetry,
not your patience but
I love every bit of you.

We'll start practicing now
and, maybe, someday
we can pitch together.
Or maybe that's all too much.
Maybe we'd be pitching each other's souls
with intent to strike out.
And did you know
That's my deepest fear?

But the risk of losing your heart and soul
Isn't as thrilling as the will to gain it back.
Even still,
Maybe I should just stick to gymnastics.
I wish we weren't all magnets
that are all too expensive to buy
and have all too strong of a pull
to all the wrong poles and
Life's never easy though.

So why not try to make it hard?

Strike ONE
Strike TWO
Strike THRE-
I quit.
For I'm not ready to admit:
Weakness is my greatest strength.