I used to believe that love made you beautiful
That you couldn’t help but act upon the world with more grace and instinct faeth
Than was previously thought possible because of it

Now I experience that it does not. I have shrivelled and become less of myself – like my mother will I look upon pictures in the years to come, retrospect and think
“I was ill, then.”

Because with every flicker you remain integral and I used to think that I loved you because you made me feel greater than my frame, made me feel better, desirable, desiring of the world and succulent amongst the leaves and limbs of my arms, hands and feet

But I still hitch for you now even though my skin has honeycombed and the nectar has dimmed and eaten away at my eyes and lips – I was not compelled to love you because you made me feel beautiful, but because you were beautiful and I only felt the afterglow and mistook it for a light that was shone with purpose. I loved you because you were beautiful, and I forgot that I wasn’t.

I love you because you are beautiful, and I recall that I am not.