being in love
is not just another way to say you have feelings
nor is it something completely undefinable
it means you are breathtakingly aware
of the curved and edges and jagged parts of your partner
and know that they fit together with yours; you salve their rough patches; they unravel your coiled ropes—the ones that tighten down across your chest when it has been a hard night and you’re a little too close to morning and the brink of something dreadful to rest—
not perfectly, but it feels like a dream regardless.
as humans do you hide some thoughts and desires with the intention of them never seeing the light of day
(or her eyes)
wrapping them up in yourself so tight you cannot take a breath without fear of shattering the force of your will that holds them so close, so secret and you will never be able to release, never be able to release—
until the tumblers slide and click into place with the slow, sure inevitability of the movement of two meshed gears or the tectonic plates
—and you exhale and they are shed from your body and crumple into her hands which cradle them, soothe them, stroke them as if they were her own
and somehow, afterwards she acts like she didn’t just completely, impossibly, magnificently halt the movement of a subducting tectonic plate and looks up at you with the knowledge of your self that you do not give out (your mind is not a charity) and her gaze is clear and you finally know, you’ve been searching for so long and you finally know and you found the answer here, in this moment—as you sit loose and unraveled and settled; in her eyes that you know to be the ones that will always hold your gaze and never flinch away; in her hands that cradle both of your own and your deepest secrets; in her beauty that colors every little thing about your universe a slightly different shade now that she’s here and you know
“in love” does not have the depth to contain the lexicon of your shared world
“in love” holds a gravity—perhaps of our earth, of our sun, of a distant star
(of two tectonic plates, closing the distance)
and that gravity is terrifying and maybe it actually is a little undefinable
(perhaps the romcoms and poets and magazines were right)
but you know it is present and are absolutely sure of it despite there being no certainty in science nor this universe
because she’s proved that she is certainly capable of unscientific feats, hasn’t she?
