and here's an untitled poem:

our conversations became

less about creating

(art music writing)

and more about negating

(rules conditions categories)

it can’t be this

we can’t be that

I love you but

but what?

there is no but in

I love you

only I

and you

and the love between us

but

that sentence didn’t fit

inside his missives

no matter how I tried

to diagram it

because I only know

the basic subject verb

agreement

I love

it’s the other parts

I never quite get right

the punctuation

and inflection

the order

and the nuance

I think I got

a faulty education

in the language of love

learned its letters

incorrectly

out of order

some completely absent

maybe my inability

to properly conjugate

is rooted in

not knowing

how to spell

perhaps I should

go back to basics

before attempting

sentences

learn the alphabet

before I write a novel