driving home from hers feeling stupid and young, the traffic in the tunnel is a mess but i spend the whole time grinning so hard my cheeks hurt from it. call my brother and spend so much time talking about it that he begs for a moment of rest. someone told me once that every set of lovers thinks their love is the special version of it. but really, really: ours is.
how lucky this all is. the spring is putting up little flowers and on the 15th, my dog turns seven. i keep standing in high places and making myself do five-breaths-in, feeling the gratitude sluice up through my fingertips.
i'm supposed to be writing about hope for a local newspaper. i keep thinking about her, and her hair across my pillow, and how when she smiles she curls the right side of her mouth first, a sun-corona smirk.
i want to write about it because i think everyone should get a chance to experience it. i want to write about it because it has no name and is all resonance. it is the magic thing, right, the upsidedown flip. the underside of a seashell. the perfect fit.
but how. how am i supposed to write a poem about it. the poem is breathing in bed next to me. the poem has a wry and dirty sense of humor and a whip fast wit. her skin is so soft is is mesmerizing, i spend hours tracing her tattoos as we share childhood memories. i write it down and i can't quite collect it - every moment a song lyric. every moment protected. it just is what it is, but what it is feels too-large, too-precious.
we lay in bed and she feels so familiar to me it is a vice. we say to each other i think i knew you in another life. we say to each other: i have waited so long to find you. i missed you, where have you been all this time?
her music spools out into my living room. i am supposed to be writing a poem about hope. she laughs at my stupid pun. she brings me tea in a little blue cup.
you know, a year ago i told everyone: i don't believe in love.
