Mine is Mine

He reads my poetry.

When he tells me this,

my breath catches against my ribs.  

This is lovely;

this is too much to bear.

To think of:

his eyes digesting my thoughts,

gobbling them up,
stumbling through,

unknowing of soul-ache
resting rich inside.

He may dissect my words,

find his own existence,

translate mine into meaning for him:
 

to place his own

in shoes

too much ME

to fill

with otherness.

Or.

He may try to relate all back to me:

blind-feel on

sticky time-line

of my 21 years.

Whatever the case,

I hold them tight:

the secrets that lay quietly sleeping,

shuffled between commas,

slipped beneath words.

They do not come easy,
they do not come sweet.

So thumb through my thoughts,

double-layer on your own,

but mine is mine—

you will never fully know.