This Side

I didn’t mean to love you on a Tuesday,

but the sky slipped,

and your laugh caught the fall.

It wasn’t grand—no orchestra or crashing waves—

just your fingers tapping time

on a chipped ceramic mug,

and the way you looked at me

like I hadn’t already ruined a hundred things.

We didn’t rush.

We built slow—

a rhythm of mornings burned and bruised,

afternoons like worn denim,

and nights strung with half-said things

that meant everything.

I told you I dreamed of rust,

of stars that blinked like tired eyes,

and you stayed anyway.

That’s how I knew.

I never needed perfect.

I needed real.

You,

standing there with all your unsure,

all your stubborn beauty,

and that way you hold silence

like it’s something worth listening to.

But—

there was a moment,

you remember it too—

when everything stilled.

Not like peace.

More like the kind of hush

that comes right before a truth lands

and breaks the shape of something.

You said,

“Love isn’t safe. It isn’t supposed to be.”

And for once,

the world made sense.

Our mess was sacred.

Our scars—co-signed.

We weren’t trying to last forever.

We just kept choosing

right now.

Again.

And again.

I don’t need a vow carved in stone

or time sewn up in ribbons.

I just need that look—

the one that says

you’re still here

when the song slows,

when the crowd thins,

when the dishes pile up

and the lights buzz too loud.

So let’s keep choosing.

Let’s forget the script.

Let the dance be wrong sometimes—

offbeat, out of step,

but ours.

Only ours.