I fell in love with your smile;
It was deep, rich and vibrant,
Like sunlight that tickles and warms the coral
Hiding beneath cool blue-green waters.
Your teeth were like shy pearls
Too afraid of their own beauty to venture out
And brave the risk of being snatched away.
Your dimples were mahogany wishing wells
Drawing lost souls into a haven long forgotten.
I wanted to dive into that beautiful smile
And be carried away.

I fell in love with your scent,
It smelled of silent cries and prayers before God
Made beneath moonlight and burning candles
The stench of bruises and unwanted children
subdued by cocoa butter, sea salt, mangoes
And dreams of escaping Master’s gaze.
lust and envy waft in the wake of gyrating hips
Like masses hypnotized by the pulsating riddims
Of oil tin drums and suppressed instincts
Your scent was loud and overwhelming
Like the factories you helped me escape from

I fell in love with your language;
Each word floats off your tongue
While syllables richochet between eardrums
Each sentence textured like Nana’s jambalaya.
This Afro-Euro-Indo-Amerindian medley,
equal parts exotic, familiar, and demure
paints pepper-soaked colloquialisms across my cortex.
The spice rings my taste buds and my throat,
Dulling over time but never losing its bite.
I, a patron at a feast of musical morphemes
Bask in the flavors of your daily conversations.

I fell in love with your body
Equal parts curvaceous and courageous
Your warm embrace belies half-healed scars
Given by those who couldn’t control your spirit.
Cast off as refuse, your body rebuilt itself
Into a testimony of fiery will and careful hands
Tempered, blackened, beaten, but beautiful.
Your iron will sings from tin drums like church bells,
your children dance your stories into my skin
like retracing memories of each scar’s journey
until the tapestry unfolds within my own veins.