āIāve fallen in love with you one hundred and thirty two times.
The first was at 2am, sheets sticking to our skin, sharing a pillow,
ātell me another secretā,
āokayā.
The twenty third time was on a highway four hundred miles later. You held my face, the sun with butterflies, the sky with pink. I felt the world spinning around its invisible axis, the solar system around its visible star, my heart dizzy from your gravity.
The seventy seventh time was when you came pouring out like a waterfall onto my toes. Give it all to me baby, the entire river, the flow and crash. I can take it. I can count so much higher.
The one hundred and tenth time was when you took it all away from me. Left my mouth gaping, a vacuum trying to suck you back in. I fell in love with you as you were leaving, fell in love with what Iād miss.
Fell in love with the face I kissed for the last time two days ago without knowing it.
The one hundred and twelfth time was in the mouth of another man calling me baby. āyouāre mistaken, I was not born in you, I was born in blue eyes that are blinking somewhere else nowā.
And shit, I fell in love with you just a moment ago, naked in your arms again, glutinous in how much of you I take, hoarding each moment I get in your arms, keeping them in the caves of my memory in case Iām forced to hibernate again.
Iāve known you for six hundred and something days, loved you in three hundred and something of them. Some days I spend worrying about finances and the state of the world, some days I spend locked in my room listening to Radiohead albums on repeat, some days I smoke too much and some days I sleep through to take a break from being awake. But some days I experience the in-between of miracles and magic. Some days I lose myself entirely, all because you exist. Some days you look at me and I forget my name. I fall in love over and over, again and again, adding another tally to the wall.
Iāve been alive for seven thousand and something days, most of which were mundane. Most of which were wasted. Some of which were spent falling in love with you, in your voice and in your fingertips, in your eyes and in your stride, in your presence and in your absence.
Over and over.
Again and again.
With infinite tallies on a wall.ā
