I say, "I love you,"
you say, "te amo."

I wrote a poem
but it seemed hollow.*

I'm starting to see that we are not
so imperfect, but rather, only
different.

I'm still waiting to age, still learning
to gauge with the dynamics we create - you
speaking a language so foreign, it seems
that you speak sweet
to me
but I fail to believe
you say what you mean.

It's as though the weight of the phrase
"I love you"
hangs heavy with the ones
who came before you;

it reminds me of airport goodbyes, of late-night
confessions on Facebook - sleepy and
painfully honest,

it reminds me of another story,

"I love you" has significance, a ponderance, an expectation,
a manner in which I can predict
the things you think behind those unsmilingly
eyes, but "te amo"

"te amo" is Rihanna, it's an utterance on a evening
beach, it's a reflexive simple present
tense, conjugated with practice, and now
it's my haven,
my integration, you have become
engrained in my conversations.