“Love isn’t always magic,
sometimes it’s just
melting.
Or it’s black and blue
where it hurts
the most.”

– Andrea Gibson

Love isn’t easy,
but it is familiar.
It is memory.
It is rehearsal, target practice,
skipping stones.
It is knowing you cannot hide
in anonymity when love always
reveals.

I.

You can wear no veil,
no shroud, no cloak that will
fool me.
I will know you by your gait,
by the silence of songbirds
that have come to expect your nightingale melody,
by the parting of the sea
as you rise from its depths.

II.

You cannot even hide
behind clouds.
I will know you
when lightning strikes too close
to home. I will know you
when the sun comes scorching,
leaving angry marks of Cain on my sin.
I will know you when the sun
doesn’t come at all.
There is no heavenly body that can keep you from me.

III.

You are known
to me even when I do not face you.
I will know you at the playground
when you don’t know how
to tell me you like me
without pulling on my pigtails.
I will know you on your rooftop
when our triangular wishes
are carried off by blinking airplanes.
You are known to me
even when you cannot face
the pain you’ve left me with.

IV.

I speak in your voice
before I even realize the words are yours.
Forgive me, again and again,
for singing in a language
you and I torched
after its creation.
I know you because no one else
dares speak to me in tongues.
No one else prophesies salvation
in a thousand speeches
before the tower comes crumbling down.
I will know you when you are silent.
I will know you when you are crashing thunder.
I will know you when you are civilization falling.

V.

Love isn’t easy,
no, but it is you.
Love is knowing.
It is unraveling, undoing.
Mapping out your dreams
and learning rescue remedy.
Love is you even when I least understand.
It is holding funerals for who you were,
baptisms for who you can be.
Love is ceremony.
It is breaking bread, saying grace.
“The one verse you can trust.”
Swallowing covenant.


//A.Z.//
07-17-20
2:17 AM