For Love

Are you watching, Love? I’m writing to you, for you, as I should have done every moment until now. Are you hearing, Love? I’ve fallen for you, and you for me, and it is the love of storybooks and poetry. Can you believe it’s real, Love?

In the quiet, I sit and I love you, the way you move about the room. At the table, I laugh and I love you, the way you care for our guests. At the store, frustrated, I love you, the way your selection’s just so. With new friends, I’m proud and I love you, the way you radiate warmth.

Sometimes you look at me, Love, and I see it in your eyes—watching, yearning, wanting—and I slap at your hand and dance away. If you laugh, we dance together. But look at me like that again, and I open to you, for you are me, Love, and everything I have is yours, Love, and you know this, too, Love.

When you touch me, I ache with happiness, Love, with relief I fall into your bed. When I touch you, you feel at home, Love, and we swim endlessly together. My friend, my companion, my other soul, Love, you’re all of this to me.

I didn’t know I could still feel like this, after streams of lovers gone by, lovers who stole the name. I lost the meaning of love, Love, in affection, desire, in thirst and greed. But you give love to my childhood, my youth, my job, my motherhood, my grandmotherhood, things you never saw and things still to be seen. And I love you for all of this, too, Love.

The world is so fast, I forgot to be, Love. But you brought me back, back to home, back to you, Love. Though it spins ever faster, though the races are longer, though the hours are harder, though the noises are louder, though the pressures are greater, though the frenzy screams go, we will sit, holding hands, Love, we will breathe, in and out, Love, we will be, you and me, Love. I love you, I do, Love.