When in Doubt

For my Purple Rain

Tirza Garcia Olivares

When in doubt, just know 

how much I crave you: 

BLANK

Like melted chocolate via bain-marie,  

like sprinkled cinnamon—the overtone of my cappuccino. 

Like a midsummer night’s dream and the dark forest all in between, 

and the people who haven’t been saints and acknowledge it, 

and carpenters who would die for a piece of mahogany. 

BLANK

Like the cocooning suffocation in the metallic blue Honda  

the family uses for road trips in the middle of June, 

every time there’s a heatwave, of course, and the fight  

between a student and a teacher during a bland lecture 

when even a wasp, uninvited, enters the room to witness. 

BLANK

Not like honey, but like caramel dense and overly sweet  

without the latent bitterness underneath that first lick. 

Like tejuino from a street vendor in Guadalajara 

and the nieve de limón jumping in, with a saccharine  

jericalla’s slightly burnt top. 

BLANK

I’m not you and you’ll never be me, but to me, 

you’re just like me, and, for the first time, it’s not 

scary. I crave you like the warmth and tint of rum 

and the toasty parts of my Saturday morning croissant 

from the coffee shop on Green Street.  

BLANK

And when in doubt, just know  

this poem came out of me like Athena,  

it came to me meta-and-intra, not carried  

by the wind but penetrated 

via all those raindrops and melted hails 

and those descending clouds.  

BLANK

When in doubt, just know 

that to me you’re worth more than all

the saffron in the world and, even if we 

will never be, I have loved and I will love you no less.