Eternal Embrace

Your name breaks open inside my mouth

like fruit gone sweet with waiting.

I am hunger that forgot

it ever wanted food.

Some days you are distant weather

I watch you cross the valleys and I cannot follow.

Other days you are so close

I forget where my breathing stops and yours begins.

To love you is to stand at the edge

of myself and move forward anyway.

To love you is to know

that wanting never empties, only deepens.

You sleep and I become vigil.

You wake and I become morning.

When you hurt, I learn

that pain can live in two bodies at once.

When you laugh, I understand

why people used to worship joy as god.

Love is not the story.

Love is the verb underneath everything,

to choose, to stay, to open, to risk.

You could destroy me.

I have laid bare my heart.

Instead, you are careful.

Instead, you offer me yours.

This is the exchange

terror and trust wearing the same face,

both of us standing here, undefended,

both of us saying yes anyway.