Stephanie

I'm not exactly sure how much time has passed since I met stephanie,
but this I can tell you this much, this woman is too many people in one
stephanie is far too complex for poetry, not soft enough for letters
yet too beautiful for haiku's.

in the absence of sound, I think of stephanie sometimes,
not quite like I used to ..all heals with time

stephanie is rain and sun, lighting and thunder
all fighting for a place in the sky at the exact same moment
and I wanted to be like her, and talk like her, and be soft like her,
a people magnet like her.

since stephanie can pull off anything, any look
could be war and peace, cold and warm, cruel and arrogant
and still remain loved, in my eyes anyways..

I love her, differentely then almost everyone I know
in a way i don't love my cousins, in a way I don't know
how to love my sisters, in a way I wish I could love
my own mother.

I've run out of metaphors to mask her,
out of pretty names to call her, Stephanie
is the depth in comfortable silence
she's the aching space between two people
who love each other, an absent moon pressed
on the galaxy , she's the beginning of romance
when everything is still new and lovely

she's both kind and quiet,
no ruler can measure the depth of her soul
no anchor can serve as a stop sign to her heart

(and I wanted to be like her, and talk like her, and be soft like her,
a people magnet like her)

but I realized that stephanie came from somewhere
differentely than I did, that even though we might
or might not be broken in the same places

what crushed and blinded me, could still be
something that could set her free, and give
her clarity, that things that would make me
stay with one of my lovers, could possibly
be things that might make her leave hers

stephanie is just stephanie,
both a victor and a victim
both the queen and the country
and no one else is her, not
even you, not even me

..not even this poem.