Dear Love,

I found you in the back alley way
near the barn on a bike
and swimming in the glen.

Saw you jump right in,
*** out, into a freezing pool -
middle fingers in the air
like some weird baptismal funeral.

I felt the weight of your losses on my shoulders
like a backpacking trip from hell,
and the way your lips pressed against one another
in an empty room.

Heard you laugh in an empty room
and fill cars with God-awful karaoke,
windows down and smiling the whole time.

I tasted your tears when you laughed
so hard that you cried, or cried so hard that you laughed,
bittersweet like a chipwich in a 711 parking lot.

Smelt your pain like a two-day-old dish
just waiting to be scrubbed, and
your happiness in clean clothes and roadside flowers.

They say soul mates aren't real,
its just who you put the work into.
Each day I wake up to you,
raw and real and still trying,
still learning and loving and giving it your all,
and honey that's just why I love,

Myself