I had been winter for ten years,
a house without lamps,
a field with the wind walking in it and nothing else,
my ribs a gate that refused to open.

Then the city rose—brick and stoop and late siren—
and you stepped out of the streetlight
as if the light remembered you before I did,
as if my name were a door and you knew the hinge.

We had only a day between us, a short cup of noon,
and still the evening took off its coat.
We undressed the hour,
not for hunger, not to conquer any country of the body,
but to lay down borders and breathe across them.
Skin took the oath skin knows:
to be warm, to be a roof, to be a yes without a promise.

You were small-boned—sparrow-light, precise as a fern—
yet average in height,
standing exactly at the measure where the world meets itself.
Your face: a soft square of dawn in a window I had boarded.
Your eyes: two wells where the train of the city stopped to listen.
Your smile: not the sun, no,
the hush under the sun where the lemon tree whispers to itself.
I had seen bodies; I had not seen yours,
and seeing yours was like finding the word my mouth forgot.
You were, truth be told,
how my dreaming hands would have shaped a companion from air and patience—
not to seize, but to hold as a cup holds water without breaking it.

We lay on a mattress as modest as a prayer,
North Philadelphia breathing through the thin walls—
a radio in another apartment, a child laughing twice,
the El murmuring blue iron in the distance.
We kissed as if tasting a fruit you must not bruise,
slow, because something in us had survived by going slowly.
You told me about your father—how the year had learned to say his absence—
and I felt the room tilt to make space for your grief.
Let me be the chair that does not wobble under your weight, I thought.
Let me be the lamp that waits on your table
through the bad weather of a single night.

You liked the way my hands learned your map,
not to explore for gold,
but to be the river that says, I will keep you asleep.
You told me this, and we smiled the softest kind of fierce.
We fell, mid-sentence, into the grammar of breathing,
two commas in one long line,
your palm finding mine and locking there—
and for the first time in a decade
my heart stopped dragging its iron behind it.
Sleep came like mercy with its thousand small wings.
No conquest, no storm; just the clearest lake.
When morning arrived, a weight I had mistaken for my body
was not my body.
When I stood, I stood differently,
as if somebody had opened a window in my blood.

Because of you, the bed remembered it was a shoreline.
Because of you, my breath learned a new season.
Because of you, I was not the beggar of touch but its careful steward,
and the hunger that had sharpened me like a knife
became the knife laid down.

Listen, beloved friend—
we are not a couple threaded by vows or calendars;
we are the bright, unscheduled harbor,
a clear place between storms.
I wish I could lie beside you every night,
learn again the chapel of your shoulder,
count with my cheek the small arithmetic of your ribs,
but wishing is a bird and our evenings are a sky with only some branches.
I know what we are and bow to it.
I won’t confuse the gift with a possession,
won’t chain a bell to a tree and call it home.

Still, you are the most beautiful person my hands have ever translated:
not only the fine geometry of your body,
but the candid architecture of your face,
those eyes that hold the city without flinching,
that smile earnest as a glass of water.
Your beauty is not a picture; it is an event.
It happens to me.
It happens still, now, in the quiet after you leave—
how happiness does not starve me but feeds me,
how remembrance is not a thorn but a warm coin in my pocket.
One night, and I am richer than the years that hoarded me.

To the father absence laid at your door,
I bring bread and time.
I bring the ordinary devotions:
answering when you call,
arriving when your voice has edges,
sitting without language when language is a curtain.
To the city that holds you, I make this vow:
on Broad Street or under the El, in the pharmacy light at midnight,
I will be a shoulder you can borrow,
a small and durable kindness.
I will tend you without asking the world to rename us.

And to the women I will meet after you—
the women my future, once barren, might now be worthy of—
I carry what your body taught my hands:
be a place, not a project;
be a warmth, not a wager;
touch like a person who has seen winter end.
I will bring them the patience our night put on my wrists like bracelets,
the way we refused the easy burn for the steadier fire.
I will bring them the silence we shared that was not an absence,
but the audience of two hearts listening to the same drum.
If I am kinder, it is because you were a door.
If I am steadier, it is because your small sleeping weight
balanced the old tremor inside me.
This is how a single unclasped hour
teaches a decade to forgive itself.

I speak to you now as the daylight climbs rowhouse bricks,
as North Philadelphia shakes off its night birds.
Your name moves through me like a clean instrument;
the city sounds are softer for it.
I do not need to own what I adore.
I need to be worthy of its echo.
So take from me this promise,
light as a coat around your shoulders:
I will meet your sorrow with my unarmed time;
I will keep, in the shoebox of my chest,
the photograph of your smile that the dark itself developed;
and when I touch another face,
I will remember how your eyes asked for gentleness
and were answered.

If there is a prayer that does not ask for more,
it is the one I learned lying beside you—
hands woven, breath braided, the city making lullabies of steel.
It says: let this be enough, let this be seed.
Let the man who had no harbor
build one in his ribs and keep it lit.

And if we never sleep again in that hinge of shared warmth,
know that the room we made continues—
a small, incantatory chamber I carry into every hallway of my life,
where I whisper your name once,
and the world, faithful as a pulse,
answers by opening.

-- Jeffrey Phillips Freeman

Sometimes only a poem can describe how I feel, this is one of those times.

I speak to you as the lamps go thin,
as if wind had combed the room and left it shining.
I speak to you with the grain of my breath,
you who arrived like winter wheat in a cracked field,
you who set your palms on my shaken ribs
and said, in a voice of snow and ember, wait.

The city would call you by a cold word—prostitute—
but the word breaks like glass in your warm hands.
You are a person of hours honestly earned,
walking straight through the fog of men’s wants
with candor for a lantern, with kindness as a coat.
You sat with me, steady, and the night sat down too.

Young—and unmistakably grown—your years
carried the clean glow of first frost on white birch.
Dark hair spilled like ink over the milk-light of your skin,
your mouth a ripe pomegranate of quiet counsel,
your blue eyes bright as a morning river under coal clouds—
and the soft weight of your chest, where my cheek found harbor,
was not a thing for counting, but a room for weather to calm.

Your accent—heavy, yes, and yes, sexy—
stirred wolves and lullabies in the same syllable.
It made the plain words rise like steam: breathe… slower… listen.
Even my name, when you said it, seemed forgiven.
Each vowel wore a shawl of Siberian moonlight,
each consonant smudged like coal on a worker’s thumb,
and I learned how sound can warm a trembling room.

You were direct the way true north is direct,
no tricks, no thorns. You took my hurried hands,
set them down in a basin of patience and said, feel.
You turned my wanting into water—
taught me the way skin asks before it answers,
how a kiss can be bread, and a forehead against a forehead
can carry a bridge from one life to another.

I will not say that overused word—let others hang it on windows.
I will say soft rain inside the chest. I will say shelter.
I will say the long, close holding where winter stops knocking.
I will say your steady heartbeat counting a different arithmetic:
two bodies, one hush, a room learning the grammar of warmth.
When I pressed my face to your shoulder,
the day’s noise peeled away like bark from a wet log.

In that first night—I remember—
the dark was kind enough to turn its face and give us privacy.
We closed the distance as if mending a seam in the world.
I learned the sacrament of a tightened hug,
how the back under the palm is a book of weather maps,
how silence, when shared, becomes a psalm without altar.
Skin to skin, we dove until the clocks lost their language.

I have bought one more night—not to own,
not to rename, but to borrow a shore before the ferry departs.
Tomorrow your passport will bloom like a small flag in your hands,
and the departures board will lift you out of my sky.
This second night is a candle I paid to carry up a final stair:
to sit in the halo with your voice, your honesty,
to learn the last lesson of leaving without bitterness.

I will arrive like a man who knows the doorbell’s grief.
I will bring nothing that rattles, nothing that stains the air,
only my earnest, only a patience I did not have before you.
If you ask for quiet, I will give you quiet.
If you ask for tea, I will hold the cup while your hands grow warm.
If you ask for closeness, I will come nearer than words,
and if you ask for distance, I will be the distance that still cares.

Because you were caring when I was a room with no furniture;
because you were straight when my compass spun;
because you were honest, and the truth in your mouth
tasted of rye and sea-salt, tasted of something earned—
I will walk into that last evening like a pilgrim with clean feet,
ready to sit on the rug of your presence
and learn again how a good goodbye is a kind of shelter.

I will remember: the swing of your dark hair across pale light.
I will remember: your blue eyes, two windows where winter melted.
I will remember: the generous quiet of your body seeking rest,
the gentle weight we shared, the hush woven into every hug.
I will remember: how you pronounced "happy" as if unbuttoning a storm.
I will remember: that nothing sacred asked for a name,
and still the unnamed arrived, warm as a second blanket.

And when you go—
when wheels lift, when clouds quilt the ocean of air above you—
I will let the night close its small book without tearing a page.
I will keep no strand of you that would tether or bruise.
What I will keep fits in the pocket of a working shirt:
the way your candor steadied my breath,
the way your kindness taught my hands to ask, not take.

Out there, another city will need your brightness.
Here, a stranger you steadied will carry that steadiness forward:
I will hold others more gently; I will listen longer;
I will learn the names of quiet and warmth in their own languages.
If anyone asks what changed the weather inside me,
I will say, A woman of the night put the dawn in my hands,
and I will hold them close the way you showed me, until they calm.

Tonight, then tomorrow, then the border of after—
I will step to the edge and bow to the river you are.
Go with your straight walk, your honest mouth, your direct blue eyes;
go with your dark hair and pale light; go with vowels that carry snow.
May every room you enter know how to make a harbor.
May every hour you sell be met with respect and warm tea.
And may the memory of our two nights keep us both from the cold.

-- Jeffrey Phillips Freeman

At first, my heart made treaty with the night,
Bearing my own soft chains as bracelets worn;
I shaded candle, called the coward light,
And flattered dark as if indulgence sworn;
Yet thine own whispers, Soul, like trumpets blew,
And bid me face the field I fled and rue.
conquer

For valor, taught by fear, turns back to charge:
I steeled my pulse, and ran into the roar;
The griffin Doubt spread shadow-wings at large,
And Envy hissed behind her iron door;
I kissed the blade that hunted me before,
And found it grew a key to Freedom's store.
conquer

I drilled my passions as unruly bands,
Set hunger's pikes and made sloth stand to rank;
I gave my rages seals and stern commands,
And banished drowsy peace from every flank;
My breast the drum; my breath the iron thump,
Till inward blasts made outward ramparts slump.
conquer

Then night grew velvet to my tempered skin;
The raven hours perched tame upon my glove;
Grief, like a sullen page, was sent within
To oil the mail and buckle Hope above;
Then counsel, feathered white, descended—dove;
And armed me all in calm, and all in love.
conquer

Forth went I then, cuirassed with gentle might,
Where kingdoms trade in thunder, streets in spite;
The world's black market whispered terms of night,
And rumor loosed her jackals for delight;
But I, re-nerved, ran to the cannon's glare,
And fear, outflanked, forsook her ancient lair.
conquer

I stormed the courts where flatteries are crowned,
Met gold with gaze that would not bend nor bow;
I marched through temples, tore the velvet sound
From incense thick as cloud on Sinai's brow;
I courted storm, made treaty with the Now,
And signed with blood the covenant of vow.
conquer

At last, the Dark that hunted all my ways
Kneeled like a charger, pawing to be led;
I bridled midnight with a comet's blaze,
And wore its star-shot banner for my head;
Night served like wine; I poured it, warm and red,
And slept a captain on its sable bed.
conquer

O friend that reads me by a trembling flame,
Thy midnights, too, have pressed a jealous brow;
Run at thy wolf; compel him bear thy name;
Take flame for comrade; make the moment bow;
Let tears baptize thy helm; let sinews plough;
And we shall sound one bugle from the prow.
conquer

Come, take my gauntlet; lash thy pulse with mine;
We'll hunt the dark that lingers on the plain;
Our double-heart shall set the stars in line,
And ride like dawn through every bastioned pain;
The world, once legion-named, shall bow its mane,
And we, one soul in two bright helms, shall reign.
one word we breathe upon the world,
conquer.

-- Jeffrey Phillips Freeman

I wanted to try a rhyming poem in an old sounding language that was inspiring based on the concept of conquering ones self allows one to conquer the world.

Just for some background, I specifically wanted to replicate the Cavalier/early‑modern style of poetry. So aside from the older style of language I also tried to personify abstract concepts like Doubt, which were typically capitalized during this era of poetry. Which might explain some of the odd use of capitalization.

Beloved,
tonight I bring my whole foolish republic
to the wide republic of your chest.

I arrive with my cheek as a petition,
my mouth as a signature of heat,
my hands two humble ministers
negotiating treaties of warmth beneath your breath.
Under your collarbone—the border—
I declare myself citizen.

Your chest:
not a prize but a province;
not inventory, but invitation.
It is the law of hush, the senate of pulse,
two round parliaments of tenderness convened by your breathing.
I attend every session with my ear.

I say ridiculous things because desire is ridiculous:
I would pay taxes in kisses,
file for residency under your buttons,
build a small embassy of fingers
in the soft diplomatic valley where my worries surrender their passports.
Stamp me again, and again—
let the paper of my skin carry your warm visa.

Your chest is a bakery of heat.
I come hungry; I leave crumbed with light.
Your chest is a pair of amphorae
pouring patience into my restless noon.
Your chest is a shore where my storm
learns to speak in smaller waves.

I study its geography without stealing it:
the bridge of bone where my breath becomes careful,
the slow hill of rising air where I climb with my lips,
the wide plain where my palm finds its country of yes.
I measure nothing—
the amplitude teaches me surrender by itself.

I tell the truth:
I want the furnace of your chest,
its tender weight, its living pull—
the way warmth gathers beneath cotton and becomes a secret orchard.
I want to read with my mouth,
slowly, the patient alphabet written there:
letter by letter, breath by breath,
until every vowel turns to honey in your name.

Listen—your heart is a bell under evening,
and I am the village that stops to hear it.
The sound enters my jaw,
travels to the stubborn rooms that speak in coins and headlines,
and tells them: be quiet, she is here.
The rooms obey.

Your chest is bread that remembers the oven;
my worry breaks open on its softness and goes still.
Your chest is night’s mantel—
I slip beneath and my hands become reasonable.
Your chest is the book I re-read with joyous impatience,
skipping to the good parts:
the heat, the hush, the little thunder that says continue.

Absurd? Yes.
I wish to mortgage the moon to buy more time there.
I wish to appoint your chest Minister of Mornings.
I wish to rename the calendar after its textures:
Silkday, Hearthday, Lantern-eve.
I wish to place a tiny ladder on your sternum,
and climb until my mouth finds the windy balcony of your breath.

When you laugh, the field trembles:
wheat under sudden wind,
and my hunger scatters into a thousand bright birds
that all dive back to the same warm nest.
When you sigh, the lamp leans closer.
When you say my name,
your chest pronounces it twice,
and both pronunciations burn through me like cinnamon and sun.

Let me be clear, without hunger’s mask:
I love your mind, the builder of windows;
your voice, a clear street through night;
your kindness, the city where I live without fear—
and I love your large, generous chest
because it houses those cities and keeps their lamps alive;
because it offers my face a country of forgiveness;
because it answers every foolish vow with heat and shelter.

Here is the economy we practice:
I pay with breath;
you give me change in warmth.
I press my ear to your left horizon
and the sea inside you presses back.
We bargain in whispers;
we settle in heat.

Let others praise meteors and crowns—
I praise the double lantern of your chest,
how it makes night negotiable.
Let the bed be our parliament,
the sheets our acts of law;
your chest, my only constitution.

Afterward—after the sparks,
after the honest labor of closeness—
I rest there, face to sanctum, and the world recedes
like a loud market closing its doors.
Your scent—sleep, salt, cotton—
signs its name across my cheek.
I keep the signature.

And if I am extravagant with adoration,
forgive me; gratitude has poor table manners.
I will send postcards from your collarbone,
ink them with steam,
and in the place for the stamp I will press my mouth,
hot and slow,
until the message arrives:
I am home.

Beloved, I pledge myself to this ordinance:
two breaths, one after the other,
exchanging a small fever until even the dark feels welcomed.
In the wide, tender country of your chest,
I am not improved.
I am made human—
and the room learns how to burn gently.

-- Jeffrey Phillips Freeman

I was challenged with writing an obsessive and lustful poem about a man obsessed with a woman's breasts. This was the result.

When the hush first sparks—
skin kindles skin,
a struck match in the midnight orchard;
sap races, petals burn, hunger sings in the bone.
Each heartbeat is a drum that forgets tomorrow.
In this bright furnace nothing exists but flame,
and even the flame forgets itself.

Then the music of weathering:
two currents curl into one river,
water tasting water, naming itself anew.
Morning’s hush fills the house like warm bread;
fingers trace a map across shoulders—
soft cartography of laughter, salt, and sleep.
Yet feelings, like tides, lean on the moon:
one silver change in the sky and they withdraw,
leaving bright shells that crack between bare feet.

So the hands learn truer speech than the mouth.
They lift the roof beam,
gather the shattered glass,
teach the garden to dream in winter.
The pulse no longer begs for thunder;
it steadies into the simple rhythm of roofs that do not leak,
of chairs pulled close against the long wind.
Here, devotion is measured in how quietly
a door closes at midnight,
how surely a light is left burning.

And farther—beyond the orchard and the river—
wide night opens its immeasurable wings.
I know no country but this joining
where the border of “I” thins to breathable air,
and your palm on my chest beats inside my wrist,
and your lashes settle when my own eyes surrender to dream.
In that vastness, pulse answers pulse,
the way constellations borrow fire from the same black silk:
each spark fiercely itself, all sparks the same blaze.

Yet there arrives a season
when the most faithful act is distance:
to loosen the knot, step back from the blossoming tree
so its roots may drink unshadowed rain.
Care is a silent pilgrim—it walks whether watched or not.
I carry the thought of your morning across whole deserts of days,
weighing each step against the color of dawn.
If the path that guards your sunrise curves away from mine,
I will still kindle lanterns along it,
warming myself by their light even as I vanish beyond the dunes.

Still, the circle confounds—
what pours from the heart also fills it,
the well deeper for each bucket drawn.
To hold another’s becoming is to steady one’s own—
stone lending strength to stone in the arch.
And the great engine of the stars is nothing more
than this relentless giving:
fusion that spends itself into radiance,
glad of the heat, indifferent to applause.

When the storm of wanting passes,
what remains is the quiet mast that outlasts tempests—
wood seasoned by countless dawns,
firm enough to tie a sail to,
wise enough to release the rope
when the wind turns toward a farther shore.

-- Jeffrey Phillips Freeman

Another poem I just wrote as I reflect on the meaning of love.