Love

without noticing
I noticed all the details

how you sliced the butter for your toast
how your warm body felt in the morning
the tone of your voice as you spoke from your heart
how your muscles moved as you threw a skipping stone across the water

I smelled the fear in your rigid thoughts
I heard the grief in your heartbeat
your playful joy rippled within me
yet I saw the lights from your battlefields
it scared me at first, I tried to control, I tried to resist

I couldn’t

without noticing
I embraced
becoming an expert
on you

I chose you
to never stop seeing, to never turn my back on

I loved

was it you hiding
or me not looking?

it’s quite a detail to miss, you heading another way
not loving enough to curiously see me

was it me hiding
or you not looking?

on the other side of ‘reality check’
I notice how I slice the butter (I do it like you now)
I greet my warm body as it wakes in the morning
I hear the tone of my voice and I ask my heart: was that really you?
I sense my muscles move as I throw a skipping stone
it plunges
I suck at throwing
it’s ok, I guess

I try to be curious, without trying too hard
to love me, too
not just you

we don’t know we don’t know love until we find it in our hearts
the curiosity, the acceptance, the compassion, the patient ‘hanging in there’
the surrender to whatever is

I choose myself, at last
to never stop seeing, to never turn my back on
I know now what it means

I will not hide
I will always look
I will hold on to curiosity

thank you