“If a man is only as good as his word, 

then I want to marry a man with a vocabulary like yours.

The way you say dicey and delectable and octogenarian
in the same sentence — that really turns me on.
The way you describe the oranges in your backyard
using anarchistic and intimate in the same breath.

I would follow the legato and staccato of your tongue 

wrapping around your diction 

until listening become more like dreaming 

and dreaming became more like kissing you.

I want to jump off the cliff of your voice 

into the suicide of your stream of consciousness. 

I want to visit the place in your heart where the wrong words die. 

I want to map it out with a dictionary and points 

of brilliant light until it looks more like a star chart 

than a strategy for communication. 

I want to see where your words are born. 

I want to find a pattern in the astrology.

I want to memorize the scripts of your seductions. 

I want to live in the long-winded epics of your disappointments, 

in the haiku of your epiphanies. 

I want to know all the names you’ve given your desires. 

I want to find my name among them,

‘cause there is nothing more wrecking sexy than the right word. 

I want to thank whoever told you 

there was no such thing as a synonym. 

I want to throw a party for the heartbreak 

that turned you into a poet.

And if it is true that a man is only as good as his word 

then, sweet jesus, let me be there 

the first time you are speechless, 

and all your explosive wisdom becomes 

a burning ball of sun in your throat, 

and all you can bring yourself to utter is, oh god, oh god.”

― Mindy Nettifee