Why is it that I, with all of me,

Can only paint your skin with words?

That even in the absence of We or Us,

I can only mix a certain proportion of

Commas and ellipses and periods

To use your eyelashes as canvases

For the tears that come with defeat.

Why is it that I, with all of me,

Can only use brushes made of silk

Sins, to make a painted tapestry

Of deliverance?

That even in the absence of We or Us,

I can only manage a lie and a verb

When all I meant to say was what was

Once painted on me,

By some other great orator,

Who taught me that love is the speech

That nobody seems to know how to say

The right way.

He taught me as one ought to be taught; 

He took his brush of sins 

And his mixture of commas and ellipses and periods

And tickling my intelligence and

Poking at my wit,

Spending hours of wasted time speaking run-ons,

He painted a portrait of myself on my own skin.

A speech about love that

Nobody seems to know how to say the right way.