to explain body and soul

yet I found you, an irrational whole.

Are you real or a fevered dream;

will you disappear, as I catch my bravery?

Is reality better

or the digital us?

Are you better

or the idea of you?

The thing about love is,

it cannot be ignored.

I can pretend it is

anger, resentment,

jealousy, fear.

I can call it

by different names

but it is here,

as undeniable as the soft pulsing

of blood through my veins.

I feel like someone else

when I am with you

a better someone

a softer me.

As I sit beside you,

coffee warming my hands

your words heating my heart,

my walls disintegrate.

I think I may be

falling in love

with you.

My laughter

tastes different with you;

it pours out like a high waterfall

crashing strong,

words land heavy

between gasps;

it is not an elegant laugh

but I don’t care.

You like me messy

so I allow myself to spill over;

these unfiltered moments

are how I measure our love.

Growing up,

love felt like a superstition

a fantasy I should not

indulge in.

Then you came along

providing me faith in something

I had given up on.

If they ask me, What is love?,

all I can say is, you.

For when we met,

it finally made sense

what others meant

when they spoke of love.

My love is

not a blooming flower

for that shall die too soon

nor is it an ocean fickle

with its affair with the moon

it is not a deeply rooted tree

for they can lie decaying too.

This love of mine is like matter

abundant, ever-present

the kind that cannot be

created nor destroyed

and as this love shifts

its energy to you

treat it gently for

it is pure,

it is true.

I strive every day

to see you as you are,

not as you should be.

In the hours of deepened dusk,

you reek of loneliness

and the burdens of this flesh

as twilight lengthens endlessly

it feels tomorrow may never arrive

there is an urgency in your melancholy

for if death were to visit, it would surely be tonight

alone in these late-night hours when time stands still

your cries of love come tumbling out,

you feel alive at last, flesh on flesh triumphs all.

But what love is that which is born in despair?

Instead, love me in the morning light,

with a fresh promise and hope ahead

when all seems possible, senses erect

in the glory of a new day, love me right.

You are

heartbreaking

and breathtaking

in the sorrows you fight.

I see your faults;

but for the first time

they are not an excuse

to run away.

As you trace figures on my back

I close my eyes and

forget the stresses that gnaw at me

our silence is lavish

glimmering with understanding

you know every etch on my soul.

For the first time, maybe ever,