my favorite part of love
isn’t the moment you see a slippery street
and still decide to step on the concrete
knowing full well
the banana slippers
on your feet
will inevitably fail to succeed.

or even the transient—albeit seemingly ceaseless—ischemic attack that accompanies,
only to flee,
leaving your newfound morphine deficiency
all you never knew you’d ever need

it’s not the self-pity,
pain,
or sympathy you summon from stems, branches, buds, or fallen crispy sheets
that console you due to formalities
while deeply-seated loyally
in your freshly proclaimed enemy.

the slip
the trip
the consequential limp
are magic. enchanting. it’s sick.
but not nearly as diseased
as my favorite phase of this plague—
its terminal infirmity the second epiphany strikes me
simultaneously as my previously paralysis-ridden limbs
spring lively
and i cling onto the same steel anatomy
that had infected me
as viciously  
as it now
heals.

- end