What I’ve learned is this:
when you’ve loved someone—
I mean really loved—
like ******* crazy loved,
I’m talking seeneveryinchofhisrottensoulandstilllongedformore loved,
known every glimmer of his shifty eyes and what each one means,
shared every bare ugly bruise of your past and let him heal them all,
peacefully slept with complete comfort and security in his arms,
danced at the thought of his name and grown
every second you spent with him or near him or thinking about him,
and yearned for more time to show him
your love and could never believe
for an instant
that maybe he loved you as much or
as deeply as you loved him,
like your insides could just burst
and your blessed little heart is liable
to explode at any instant with the
sappy mushy love
that looks ridiculous on anyone else
kind of loved—
when you’ve loved to the point
where you don’t watch your back
and never think he’s watching his,
where you don’t look to the past because there isn’t one,
only a wide, shiny future,
where you fall in love with every word that
drips from his mouth to yours
and every thought that materializes in that
beloved skull,
where you lose yourself and everything
you thought you knew only to realize that
you are
refined
and more you
by his side than you are alone
(and that stupid little paradox doesn’t sound ridiculous to you),
where you can sit in complete profound silence
and still manage
to know each other better for it,
where imagining life without him is a hilarious extravagant absurdity,
where you are certain that other people just will
never know a tenth of the love you have,
where waking up and driving and lunching and chatting
and the most mundane
aspects of your mundane
days make the most tender moments of your life,
where you’ve never been so content to be so vulnerable—

when you’ve loved someone like that—
completely—
the tears taste a little sweeter.