Cliché

I miss you like all the clichés.
I shouldn’t identify with a peanut butter sandwich without jelly
or like a cat looking at a cup of cream on the counter.
But I do.
I want to push you off the edge and taste the sweetness.
I want you like the desert wants rain
and when you rain, you pour.
The cactus in my window has never been such a relatable friend,
but I would pick out all the spikes in my skin to feel your cool touch.
And when you’re not near I feel so empty,
like an e.e. cummings poem has been punched from my chest.
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
until I’ve read all the lines and the hole is just as big.
I want to pick petals off flowers so I’m sure that
you love me you love me not you love me
so much that I could be the roses
sprinkled from a flower girl’s clutched palm.
As our fingers finally thread together again,
my whole arm tingles like a phantom limb being reattached
at the strings of my heart that I didn’t know you held.
But you do.
You have reins on my body
like a queen over a kingdom of jacks and spades
painting the shrubbery red.
And I want to be the ace in your back pocket,
ready to tenderly slip me into your hold
and let the poker face fall to the table for the night.
Tonight
I want to be your cliché.