People make people into banks.
I put everything I had into him
And waited for the day I’d get my check.
And then I figured love is not a debt
Love is not settled like a score.
Love is not for clean black ledgers
Love is like a messy sea that pushes up against a shore
Even though the shore will always push it back.
The only time that love is measured is when you see that line
That marks the shifted sand
Where love relentless
Reached and tethered
Herself to land.
Where she turns white from clinging,
Where, though she drags herself away,
She is always returning—
—if the shore grows weary of her hugs
She is not hurt
He does not owe her.
She does not ask that he adore her,
Or implore her “stay. . .”
Only that he let her nuzzle him as gently or
As fiercely as she feels her current sway.
She is tidal, she is beautiful
Almost brutal,
But, giving more than taking,
The sea is faithful as well as wild,
She can change the shape of a continent
And kiss the toes of a child.
She will be gathering him deeply under her heavy waves
And lingering to lick at his soft edges
Sprawling across the coast like a bed
She will love him this way,
Until the moon crumbles
And all earth’s tides are dead.