You Already Know by Nicole Barth [12/4/10]

What if I told you this is about you?

What if I told you I've lost my filter...

The secret's out, and you've got me spluttering excuses

like a leaky faucet.

I'm tired...

I'm stressed!

I'm spacing out?

I'm actually just hyperventilating at the thought of you reading this.

You've somehow found the the tarnished key, buried

in the tight-lipped dirt of my childhood's teddy bear.

I swore I wouldn't tell you a thing.

I swore it would all end that night,

and yet you have me smiling to myself

as I think about the multiple “less than 3s” you've sent my way...

And that smile you hate so much—which, by the way, could light up a room.

You're thousands of miles away, and exactly fifteen hours

—or it is more?—ahead of me.

But here you are, figuratively sitting on my bed as your azure eyes

take in the swirls of girlish giggles dancing across my rug.

Feels as if you were reading this now.

My fingers are cemented to the keyboard

but someone has staplegunned my thoughts

to a sound-proof wall.

“It's a shame we live so far away”

….Shame you don't realize I think about it every day.

There's a stain on the page from past plagues,

strewn across moth-eaten confessions

and charred secrets.

But you've infiltrated the system

and somehow unraveled it all.

But what if you already knew all of this?

I'll never call this a love poem.

And don't try convincing me...

Because the instant it's labeled and packaged,

the worms will find their way through.

—it's cheesy, it's crummy, it's false, it's fake—and you're nothing but a string of lies.

But dear God, don't let it come to that.

Say it again... “i can't stop thinking about you.”

And say it'll be great.