Love Is
Love is forgiving the messes we make,
the spilled wine on the upholstery,
the hair in the sink, the overdrawn account.
And love is the accommodations we make
for one another. You try to hurry up. I try
to wait patiently until, one day, we have
defined time differently for ourselves
and in contrast to others. Love is
our erosive effects upon each other, your
ocean to my shore or my wind to your plains.
Love is telling our own stories, yours
and mine, but intertwining them, finding
the places where we meet, our common
themes, the occasional motif. Love
is more character and less plot, it's not
so much rising and falling and climax
as it is developing complexity and
long, emotional arcs. And love is
the photographs we choose to print,
to frame and hang on the wall
or display on our desks like touchstones-
the moments we return to as definitions
that say, "This is what our love looks like."
Love is the maintenance we do even
when it means another item on the list:
the dishes and laundry, picking up
prescriptions, trimming eyebrows,
shaving chins and legs and pits.
Love is the occasional date night
when we find the space to listen
without distractions, to share the ideas
too big to be mentioned in passing.
Love is how we feel when we hear
each other laugh or we notice a deep
sigh from the other room. Love is knowing
how to convince each other to book
the vacation we said we wouldn't take
or to order out when there are plenty
of perfectly good options we could cook.
Love is the permission we give ourselves
to fail and to try again, to finish fights,
to play to win, to lose sometimes
and to give in when we want to give in.
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