Stolen Art
A free-verse poem on forbidden love
When I came to you,
you had no idea I was there,
but it didn’t matter
because you recognized me
from the way I kissed you —
the way I had promised to kiss you
as soon as my eyes landed on you.
I held your hands, pressing them
to feel each labor they’d made —
all they had drawn and sketched,
designed and fabricated.
You had always loved
to create art
in which people
could find themselves;
you had always loved
to create art
because you were art
in and of itself
yet that no one
truly paused to admire,
so I chose to admire you.
In you, I found myself.
My precious, I was worried.
I was worried time would betray us
as it had always done because,
with you, it flew.
I was worried you’d slip
between my fingers,
slowly vanishing into nonexistence
as I awakened from what could be
nothing but a forgotten dream.
Then I cradled you
gently, as if you were a relic,
with hands that refused
to leave one inch of your skin
untouched and neglected
because I had stolen you.
I stole you
from all the rules
you had assembled
to guard your heart,
with the hope I could
keep you safer in my embrace
than in a display box of weak glass
upon scarlet, lonely velvet.
My fingernails, painted a color
close to that of your soul,
pierced your back
to pluck out
every grief and sorrow
you had ever experienced;
a spine like yours
could not exist alone.
In your soft slur was poetry,
and I listened to it — to you —
as I would to a chant fleeting
across Sabbath candles
flickering in reverence
on the Lord’s Day.
I had never heard such poetry,
and I knew it emerged
only when you didn’t care
whether it made sense;
you were free, and you spoke
what you had never said once.
There was nothing
that could contain you, even though
I had all of you.
© Andrée Khoury 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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