My Love Letter to My Partner

if you had studied biochemistry

and your arms were free of scars

if your mood was a flat line, and I

never sat across from you, on a therapist’s couch

would I know the joy of waking up

to your soft and sleeping face?

would I know the way you called me a hurricane

with a pretty, pretty face

would you know that I’ve never been called such things

make me blush like the sun in the summer

when the wildfires get real thick?

would I know, would I know

the sweetness with which you say

that I am the lovely dawn of all your days?

maybe we meet, in those universes

and I hope we meet, in those universes

but

we would be different people, with different flaws

for no universe thrives unchallenged

and nobody lives without cracks in their porcelain finish

I hope our crooked pieces fit together there

like they do here, when we are curled

together in the darkness of our room, breathing in sequence

trying to remember that one day, we will feel less powerless

it is not easy- it is never easy

but it was easy falling in love with you

and it’s easy to stay in love with you

we can change your hair, and change my crooked posture

change your driver’s license, and get me my nurse’s license

get you those silver lines on your chest you always wanted

and I’ll throw away your binders with a fox’s grin

we can make you stronger, and we can see you through it

and you can be their handsome firstborn

we can be the people

not that we wanted, really

but that we were always meant to be

because this universe is not the one where we

look in the mirror, and love what we see on contact

and god, if it could be easier for you

as easy as it is to wake up next to you

as easy as it is to see the future with you

I would make it so

no, I-

I don’t think it’s divine providence to suffer, baby

I don’t think the higher powers want us lonely

but here, in this way, we found one another

and so I have to love something about us, lovers

it’s hard, hard, hard

but I have the amber moment of you, across the table tonight

drinking a mai tai with Somewhere

Over the Rainbow

playing in the background, the couple next to us

keeps looking at us funny, but it’s just-

funny, well, because you fill me up so warm

my chest is swimming and you have me caught

where the waterline barely runs under my lungs

I could drown in you, I could drown in the way

that you make me feel

and I wouldn’t have that, if I hadn’t met you when we were

sat out on a summer’s day, in a gazebo, drinking iced teas

talked about the way I don’t feel solid in my body

and the way you wish you didn’t feel so solid in yours

no, I get to have the way you hold me when I cry

I get to have you reaching for me in your sleep

Oh, the moments of you unguarded, when you paint

or your love for soft things, sweet things, round things

here, I am holding this moment of you doing dishes

while I study for a test, passing me a cup of tea

I didn’t know I needed, or how you knew my shoulder hurt before I did

lover, here, I am holding the sweetness of you fitting in

to the chaos of my family and our tight knit

I have lost a lot of things, in this life

and I have grieved a lot of things, in this universe

I have lost my body and my bones, broken my own heart

and then some, set myself on fire

just to keep the house warm, when I

couldn’t find anyone else in it, when I

forgot how to speak, how to breathe, how to swim

I drowned, coughed the sea water back up, and then

kept going

because I lost a lot of things, but darling, I will

take this universe

as flawed, as broken, as leaden as it is

because in this universe,