The Things I Know Well | Teen Ink

The Things I Know Well

June 7, 2011
By Afanen PLATINUM, Santa Rosa, California
Afanen PLATINUM, Santa Rosa, California
49 articles 0 photos 47 comments

Favorite Quote:
"But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist."


- Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time


These are the things I know well.

Silence in a dim room, the stillness
of contentment or companionship.
Individuality in togetherness, silver slivers
of sleep next to a soft-smelling body.

Quiet laughs, beauty and exasperation and
crisp white sheets; aching and longing
and storybook magic in a touch.

I know your mind and body, and I presume
to your heart, most I know is your secret,
but secrets are notorious gossips, and I know it
best of all.

I know the wheezing and sudden unexpected clarity
of a bright girl’s rickety grand,
the sliding loveliness
of music and the dense darkness
of your beloved film.

I know my words in your mouth, colored like daylight
in your voice, our amalgam.
I know the way they taste on your tongue
when you feed them back to me, a creator’s
phrase gone and come back different, sharp sweet and
dancing with the twist of your interpretation.

I know the abrading flavor of caramel,
how it leaves your mouth burnt sweet
and heady to kiss. I remember from those dreams
I have had a thousand times over,
from the midnight sun streaming through a
pitch black window.

I know you,
your laugh, taste, smile,
the way you cry and the colors you make
of your voice and pianist fingers and me.
I know what you won’t let out and can’t let in,
I know I am the one that got through anyway.

I know these and every facet of you,
better than I know mine own,
but alright, because you know me like I know you,
and I know the music you make of
your knowledge in all the colors
of light and the taste of caramel
and mint mixed in two mouths.

These are the things I know well.


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on Apr. 22 2017 at 10:57 pm
HereSheIs BRONZE, Wellesley, Massachusetts
3 articles 0 photos 187 comments

Favorite Quote:
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." -Plato

Now that is a good love poem