everything i know about love

a few summer love poems definitely not about u.

Hold this for me, will you?

Here’s to the ones who fall in love

and all those who, like me, count their chickens before they hatch

those of you who turn your face to the East to watch the sunrise

And who kiss the ocean to the west

we are the ones who eat the whole orange with the rind

the romantics with books in their heads and a cliché metaphor hanging off their lips,

and who say I love you too soon too fast

so the words don’t drip like honey

But dribble like grape juice down your baby cousins chin

Because he’s laughing so much//

this is for the one who holds those three words like she’s underwater

She keeps it tenderly on her sleeve

And makes sure no one is close enough to touch it

But it’s there

She holds it gently, softly, fearfully

Scared that if she lets you hold it

You will trail off like an unfinished sentence

What if the tears and fears and hopes set so precariously fall when you come in

what if there’s a hole

a gap

something missing or grotesque

what if all that she is, isn’t enough

will you still hold it for her?

please, don’t say no

Doing the dishes together is the most romantic thing

Come

Run away with me

Somewhere where all we worry about are rugs and taxes

Let’s live uncomplicated lives

Behind white picket fences

And a hatchback in the garage

That definitively needs a wash

But maybe the rain will come and wash it all away

While we sit inside

And make over priced coffee in cheap mugs

Chopping onions and prepping pans

Cleaning dishes and dancing in the kitchen to a song playing from our neighbors yard

Hold my hand in the car,

And for a second, look at me and not the road

What it would be to complain about tree trimming with you

For you to romanticize the sunsets with me

And for me to be completely ordinary with you

And not care that we are not more

Or are made to feel we are somehow less

Wildflowers are seasonal

You were completely ordinary until I started to love you. Then each day I fought to see your smile and wondered what your hand in mine would feel like. I walked the contours of your mind and learned the shape of you until I could chart it out on the back of my hand. Until I knew you like the back of my hand.

I wanted to step into your world of meticulously made Monday morning coffees

And learn how it was you could walk into a grocery store and walk out

With only what was on your list

To realize that I have a smile that I only share with you, and that when I give it to you, whenever you see it, I’m saying “this is for you and only you”

To stand at the top of a mountain and to look out, look down, look up, and still I find myself looking at you

//

linger at the door a little longer

and I’ll take a Polaroid of you

forget your jacket, your phone, your whole heart here

come back to get it

again and again and again

until you live here too

and we share our Monday morning coffee

and I feel your warmth from across the room

//

I love the blackberries on my way to work,

The wildflowers creeping from this concrete jungle

I love the pinks of the sunset

I love a crunchy climb and a good baguette

I love your songs on my playlist

Because they remind me of you

I love the thought of you before I fall asleep

Or trying to match my strides in your footprints and laughing at how much taller you are

I love sitting and existing with you,

When I can pretend we are sunflowers

And when there is no sun, we turn to each other

//

You were my favorite song, until you weren’t.

Then one day, you became ordinary again.

the house was colder

And coffee comes $4.5 across the street,

Where the last thing you said to me was, “it was nice running into you!”

I guess that’s what we are now

Now it’s dark when just a few weeks ago the sun reminded us it was summer

I buy myself sunflowers and hum songs from the radio

And I go to bed with nothing on my mind

Monday morning coffee

I loved her like I love cinnamon sugar. Not the kind that precipitates to the bottom of your coffee mug, but the kind that lingers in the hot, sticky summer morning air outside a bakery on central street, and what gets on your fingers and shirts after an evening of baking with the best people.

I loved her in rhythms and notes, measures of rain filled laughter and photos and videos on my silly little favorites list on my camera roll

I loved her, so I chose to become her, and I came to love me. I chose to speak the language of the sunrise, in promises, in hopes, in prayers that take shape of sunrays on Monday mornings;

I came to love her in the language of everyday things, bc in everyday things we find what’s most important to us. We fill our everydays with the things we love and I want to fill them with her.

No, I will not romanticize her, and no, I will not let her be reduced to boxes or “if the shoe fits”. No, she does not fit. She will roam free, and bring with her Kindness and Bravery on her back. With the ocean as her mother and the stars as her sisters, she is infinite.