"Be still," I tell my heart
Though I know it will not
For you give my heart wings
And with your presence
It flutters
Like a butterfly
On a warm spring day

My head lays on your chest
Listening to the rhythmic beat of your heart
My eyes are stuck on you
And ignoring the movie on the TV in front of us
Because when you’re in the room
Nothing else exists

Catching my stare
You smile at me
Your fingers grasp the emptiness between mine
You pull me closer
Until we’re embracing
You whisper instead of speaking aloud
Fearing that the meaning behind your words
Will get lost in the sound

No words I speak can do my feelings justice
For it’s nearly impossible to describe this love
But you understand
Because you feel it too
Nobody has ever loved anyone like I love you

Family
A loose term

You might picture a group of people
They look similar
Seem to get along
Eating dinner together
Making small talk

You might picture a group of people
Taking pictures together
Laughing and waiting in line
At a theme park
On vacation

But I picture a group of people
Husband and wife disobeying their vows
Fighting
Tearing the “family” apart

I picture a group of people
Hiding in their separate rooms
Dysfunctional
Mother crying
Father ignoring the world
Delving into the world of football
Or movies
Anything but here
Eldest son gone, he escaped
Youngest son hiding in a cave
His only concern winning a violent game

And me
Trying to make something beautiful
Out of the mess this has become
Trying to make it out alive
Before I can escape too

I like to keep you with me
In the corner of my mind
A little voice inside my head
Telling me good things when bad things happen
Helping me make right out of things that go wrong

It’s been like this for a while
I’ve been empty like this for a while
At least when it comes to you
Because it’s hard to fill the void
Of someone who will never return

And you, I’m afraid, are gone
Not by choice either
By a disease that I will forever hate
Because it took you away from me

You could have taught me so many things
And maybe if you were here
I wouldn’t have doubted God for so long
Because he took you away from me too

When I wasn’t sure how to pray
I talked to you
I cried to you
And you could never console me
Because you’re gone now

I was fragmented, abandoned, alone
Until I found you again
I lost you; I left you
In hopes of forgetting and moving on
But you can’t move on from someone who changed your life

And so now, I like to keep a little piece of you with me
Not your picture on my dresser
Not your hat I keep in my closet
Not the bear I named after you
Who I finally outgrew clutching in my sleep every night
Crying, wondering when everything would be okay

Because it’s okay now
I’ve remembered you
And I keep a little piece of you with me now

I found the perfect pair of blue jeans once
I was 12 years old
They hugged my adolescent body
Until I was 13 and a half
And my body started to change

Tiny layers of fat creeped up on me
Laying on my thighs and my bottom and my hips
Making my body into a woman’s

You see, I am cursed with curves and tiny ankles
While my thighs and my bottom and my hips changed
My ankles remained the same

Petite
Frail
Bony

It has become impossible to find
The perfect pair of blue jeans

I would come close
Hugging my hips with grace
Encasing my thighs with elegance
Even closing to embrace my calves
The denim fabric reached my ankles
And became baggy, oversized

I gave up
I bought three pairs of the same style that almost fit
Until yesterday

I came upon a coupon
And so I went shopping
In an unfamiliar store
And I tried on a pair of blue jeans

They hugged my hips with grace
They encased my thighs with elegance
They closed to embrace my calves
And when the denim fabric came to an end
And the final stitches held the jeans together
My ankles were not drowned in thick denim

They were petite
Frail
Bony
But they had found the perfect pair of blue jeans

My favorite memories are here, with you
Riding in your car
One hand on the steering wheel, the other in mine
One eye staring at the road to keep us safe
The other can’t resist looking back at me
With love

Your voice sings loud enough to cover the radio
Notes above and below pitch
I’m a critic, but I don’t mind
Because you’re mine
You’re all I need

Consistent trips to an overpriced coffee shop
Caffeine runs through our veins
Caffeine mixed with a four letter word
One that drove our actions, our words, our hearts
When we were still too afraid to say it

I first told you here, where my favorite memories are
Because it is one
Though it isn’t perfect and romantic as I’d hoped
It’s our memory all the same
When my fear of that same four letter word was lost
And my fear of losing you replaced it
I had to tell you

I sat there quiet, refusing to look at you
And when I did
I just couldn’t help myself
Whispering softly I said it
And my whole world changed

Suddenly it was different
Love existed because you and I existed
And in the midst of fooling around
In an empty parking lot
In your car with the radio off
I told you I love you

I feared the worst in that moment
Until you tilted my head up
So that my eyes would meet yours
And you smiled
And before you said it, your eyes did
And I knew you loved me
And then you said it
Pure bliss

I never knew such a feeling existed
It was different than I’d imagined
Better
It gets better every day
Because each morning I wake up
I look at the picture frame on my nightstand
The two of us staring into each other’s eyes
With love

Each morning I wake up
I fall deeper in love with you than the day before
Cliché I suppose
But with love
All the clichés begin to come true

There isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do
To make you happy
To see you smile
To hear you laugh
To feel your lips softly caress mine

With love

I never believed in love
It was fiction
Because it only existed in fiction

My parents were great parents
But that’s all they were
The hollow title of husband and wife
They were parents
They were not lovers

My grandparents were different
They held hands often
He held the door for her
She laughed at his jokes

But they fell in love ages ago
Before society was corrupt
When chivalry existed
Doors were held
Hands were held
Hearts were held

Now doors are slammed
Hands are clasped tight in each other
Praying for a miracle
Hearts are broken

Until you, who held the door
My miracle
Prayers suddenly answered
Mending my broken heart

I believe in love
It is real
Because it exists in me and you