I want to know, before I allow intimacy,

If your words are counted on with legitimacy

And if others depend on your integrity

And on the steadiness of your hands

and your ability to understand.

I want to know the language of your love

And if you believe that love

Can make you rise above

The dirt and decay

that is full of today.

I want to know if your love is full of passion

And if you can find the compassion

To allow the wings that carry you above

To be broken for the sake

Of a rusty-winged dove.

I want to know if you would allow the fallen kings

To take you away from your wings

So that the dove may sing,

and no longer dangle

From the puppeteers’ strings.

I want to know if you would smile as you sink

And watch as the dove leaves you

To be blotched by the star-filled ink

That leaks from the sea

Drowning your eyes.

I want to know if your heart knows how to swim in that sea

Because it knows the depths,

Or if it has never seen the the waves

That constrict your breath,

Nor the breadth

Of the darkness that hides in the locket

Of your heart.

I want to know if your heart beats back the waters,

Or if it rather attempts to dry them up

Before they get the chance to interrupt

The cheerful chatter

That it craves to hear.

I want to know if yours is the heart that shatters

Or if it is the kind that rips.

Do your sorrows and pain leak

Out of those rips and shatters

With a splash and splatter

or do they fall with a quiet drip?

I want to know if you find yourself constantly torn between

Being reminded by the sound of a drip

And the sight of some great artmanship

Of a goal that matters

Or instead being held enthralled

In a story’s grip.

I want to know if the gaps in your broken heart

Are spread apart and filled and expanded

With the words of an art that are constantly

Put on display and then lamented

Reprimanded and reinvented.

I want to know if you find all your time spent

In relentless endless reminiscence

If the lightning in your mind

Is on a spiralling descent

Even as it leaves you behind.

I want to know if you feel yourself caught up

With thoughts of the constellations inside

And if you find yourself wanting to but unable to cry

For the sake of a world

whose light has run dry.

I want to know if you are anything like me,

If you find yourself caught up in between

The rythmic thumping continuously pumping

A forceful beat into your ears

And if you would be the first to volunteer

To fight in a battle

For the sake of those still in shackles.

I want to know, before I allow myself to love you,

Would you allow this kind of interview

To give something of a preview?

Are you willing to sacrifice

The walls we have built up?

Does this seem a fair asking price

For the prize of my love?