The way your touch turns my skin to living waters

A sailboat takes off from the landing dock of your fingertips

Flying at the speed of light

Carrying the most crucial of cargo

The message that roars

Human contact is not what it once was

pain force anguish bruises digging mine

I am not anyone’s anymore

I am my own and I am worthy and I know this

Because your touch set sail and told me so.

 

When you look at my body it is not a work of Science

Or of God

You do not see it as a house of definite, brick walls

Prior to what I always thought a body was

The parts that make me who I am

That determine whether it is okay for me to shave my legs

or wear my hair in flowing curls

You are blind to them

Who I am attracted to, who on Earth I identify with

You haven’t a care in the world

Because your love for me screams

my name

and my name alone.

 

Love is a face

A softened face rounded out by fair curls

Hazel eyes

Your charitable nature and spirited laugh

My nurturing soul

The ability to give all the covers, as you do

The desire to hug the sobbing stranger,

as I do

a girl a boy an infant

Us in a new existence

Love is the glimpse of a dream

Of bringing about a greater

love.

 

I discover flaws everyday etched underneath your skin

You notice the way I am mean when I am tired

I flinch at the way you smell when you’re drunk

You cry for days when you see

the scars I wear on my arms

But we find beauty in every imperfection

Because love is not ignoring the defects but rather

devoting ourselves to cherishing them for their integrity

For the transparency and bravery it takes

not to hide the things we loathe most about ourselves

Love is not changing to fix the

broken beaten wrong

But uplifting our weaknesses in bright white lights

Cradling our insecurities in eachothers arms

Until we do not see them for what they

once were

We do not ask for change because we do not

wish

for any different.

 

When Mom left Dad

Left me; left home

You made a home with your words

With your hands

You opened a front door not in the shape of a door

And told me

“My love, I see the parts I adore most about myself in you but I don’t see those parts anymore. They don’t come around so often.

If you have no reason to fight on do it only for the sake of

saving me.

Because I am only myself when i am with you.”

Love is fighting your greatest demons

Staying afloat

Because someone else holds your world

and the stars

in their hands. And you hold theirs

Because your life is not only your own anymore

And you must take care of them

In order for them to take care of you.

 

When you left me, my home,

My world shattered

Because you picked me up and carried me so far

only to drop to me here in the land of nothingness

Without a compass

Or a kiss

To guide me back. You didn’t want to guide me back just yet

This part of love took me the longest to comprehend

because no part of it seemed beautiful or right

to me.

It’s ugly

Like the breaking of a bone or the pooling of blood

It’s an impenetrable force of dark water

Sucking me to uncertain ground I was flying above

when you were mine

But months went on, years went by

Your face changed in my dreams

I don’t cry anymore

I know now, like I know the way your lips feel on my neck

I know

Love is waiting

On the other side of a door I am not meant to open yet

My love is waiting

In my heart and in yours we know we are meant to share

a bed a home a name a life

I will pick you up and carry you the rest of the way home

Because you had sustained my life for so long

You were tired

I know

And I will hold on tightly to this

Until the light swells above the horizon

And I call your name

Because the same sun rises on you and I

And that same sun will set on us as well.