"A devouring"

Here is a poem I have been working on. I would appreciate feedback from anyone who reads it. Posting it here is a lot easier than emailing to various friends and family members.

"A Devouring"
October 2004

1.
Is there a word
in this language we share
that I could speak and express in full
my desire for you?
'Inhale' comes to mind.
For the way I want to inhale
each and every one of your exhales
simply because
there is a part of you
in each of them.
'Drink,' perhaps,
for the way I want to drink
every idea or passion of yours.
Every single thought
about life or love
or eternity.

2.
I could spend and entire day
drawing you.
Every curve and pore and hair,
and my charcoal lines
would give shape to your thighs,
your shoulders, your collarbone.
I would trace your lips to your hips
with my pencil
or my fingertips.
And if I finished the portrait
I would set it on fire
and watch your entire body,
from your toes
to the hair framing your face,
turn to ash and dust.
And I would smile because
the picture,
no matter how beautiful,
would always exist
more perfectly in my mind.

3.
There was that time
on the pier one evening,
when I almost touched your hair.
Orange light stretched our shadows,
soaked into our skin,
and I imagined
that this was how i wanted you.
Soaking into my skin.
Seeping into my pores.
I wanted every word
that poured from your throat
like crisp liquid,
and the ponderings behind them,
to pour into mine.
Into me.
Become mine and become me.

4.
My history with you
has been a history of hunger.
A desire to consume
but not destroy.
A sort of merging
or intersecting maybe.
The way I would breathe you,
The way I would paint you,
Or swallow or swim
in you or with you,
is a type of devouring.
And love, I guess,
is a devouring.

-Pieter Lars