We met about four years ago, and for a long while we were little more than acquaintances, mainly seeing each other in the context of a weekly spiritual group, though we did meet up a few times outside of the circle. Had I known who you were then, I would have done everything in my power to get closer to you. But of course, it wasn't time. Gradually, as we each became more involved in our jobs and romantic relationships, we saw less and less of each other, and then a couple years into our tenuous acquaintanceship, you moved out of state, and what little we knew of each other sat on a shelf, gathering dust, waiting to be picked up again.
Recently, after two years in which we were merely memories to each other, you brushed off the dust and messaged me to tell me you appreciated my writing and to ask if I would coach you. We picked up as if not a day had passed, and we began sharing our writing with each other. At first, we checked in a couple of times a week, but soon we were emailing and chatting every day. Little by little, we got to know each other, and against all odds, and also inevitably, we fell in love. (Of course we did.)
Then, after weeks of our falling through the ether of online conversations and phone calls, you flew up to Portland, and we fell into each other's arms for the first time. You pressed the whole of yourself against the whole of me, and I knew, just like that, I would never stop falling for you, that I would have
to grow comfortable with the unmooring of my heart rising in my chest
like Venus floating up towards the moon. I instantly lost all illusions that I didn't know how to love, that I didn't need love, that I didn't want to love. I also knew I could not hide from you: I would tell you
everything; I would give you anything; I would do things for you that
were beyond my comprehension. Loving you would change me.
You need to know how much I love you. But all I have is terrible poetry and possibly worse prose.
I turn my love on you
like a fire hose, and hope
it doesn't hurt.
I turn my love on
and hope
it doesn't hurt.
A fire hose. I'm talking about the force of it, not the wetness. Wetness. That is a terrible word. Actually, a fire hose is a terrible metaphor when I think about the way you set my world ablaze. (I am besot with awkward, ill-fitting metaphors and tired cliches.) Let me try again.
Our first day together, you re-organized the food in my kitchen cabinet. As I watched you sort boxes of pasta and cans of beans, you re-arranged the pantry of my heart.
The pantry of my heart.
Another terrible metaphor.
You grinned up at me from your spot on the kitchen floor, an unlabeled can of what might have been vintage tuna fish in your beautiful hand, and I knew, though I appeared to be standing, I would always be kneeling before you, my heart open and ready.
If my heart is a can, you are a can opener.
(It doesn't get better than this.)
(I am terribly romantic.)
You need to know:
For you, I would fight
the ocean, just me
and my pointy fists. I would
bare it all, I would
risk it all.
Does this scare you? (The ferocity of my feeling, not the terrible poetry.)
Sometimes I have even less than my own tragic lines.
In my life there’s been heartache and pain
I don’t know if I can face it again
Can’t stop now, I’ve traveled so far, to change this lonely life
I want to know what love is, I want you to show me
I want to feel what love is, I know you can show me
I’m gonna take a little time, a little time to look around me
I’ve got nowhere left to hide, it looks like love has finally found me
Yes, I’m quoting Foreigner. Because that's how much language eludes me when I try to tell you how much I love you. You amaze me, and I am incredibly grateful to know you.
I want to make fire with you. And put out fires. And swim in the ocean. And fight it for your honor, if I must. And roll around on the kitchen floor opening the cans of our hearts together. I want to know what love is with you, terrifying as it is. Please don't ever stop telling me where to put my beans. I love you, my beautiful matchstick, my glittering can opener. I love how you open me.
