Tell Me

Ask me what I want

And I will not tell you.

Perhaps I will tell you a lie.

I doubt you could tell the difference.

I want a dress made from the sky,

To steal stars from royalty, may they be kings,

And drink the blue from the sea –

The salt parches your throat dry until we bleed.

I want a book of your secrets.

Write them on the margins, in small script if you would like

I will burn them before reading and

Trade you one of mine for each that you whisper

If they are false.

I want impossible things.

To bottle the beauty of a face and keep it to myself,

To tell my younger selves the color of my dreams,

And die the world’s first death.

I will not tell you

What I want most in the world.

It would only make me want it more.

• Dreams
• poem
• poetry