your voice sounds like hospital discharge papers,
like the elevator tone on the top floor of a 20-story building,
like hallelujah at a pastor’s wedding,
like my mother winning custody in october.
i don’t know what love is,
i only know that love is four letters short of it’s synonym, intimacy.
four letters short of fondness, yearning.
i know the human heart beats 115,200 times per day.
combined, we are 230,400 heart beats.
combined, we are traumas,
ten finger nails,
shattered glass in the kitchen,
one hundred baby prayers,
and too many sympathies.
where do you want to leave your scars tonight,
your place or mine?
they can sleep on the couch.
i’ll make eggs in the morning.
i don’t know what love is,
but when my baby niece was bellied in my sister, she was kicking, and kicking, and even when the bruises surfaced,
we called this good.
sometimes love leaves marks to show signs of life,
stomached and not yet born.
like this-
like you.