What Love Feels Like (a poem)

The year I got sober, I wrote a poem every day. This one was written September 19, 2018.

What Love Feels Like

We are two sides of the same coin

& I am rewinding through each of the clues that led me to you:

words like angel,

backyard laughter at dusk,

neighbors everywhere.

Your football photos,

your driven, wild commitments to athleticism,

The wrestling years

cutting weight,

laughing with you like children,

& not thinking more than one day ahead.

It all takes me back to Sunnybrook,

my childhood street.

The path through the woods I made

by running it so many times,

away from Mom,

away from gossip,

towards adventure,

towards my treehouse in that giant, old oak.

To share our histories is to know your blueprint,

Point A leads to B.

I see your wounds because I map them out

for a living

I will always honor them,

& support your healing.

I will trace them with my fingertips and kiss them

on their mouths

Till you are fragile and weepy and we will

make love in a sweet

warm flurry,

giggle till our vision blurs,

stay up till sunrise

but really not.

We will sleep in.

And we will breathe deep, and you will tell me:

“It isn’t yours but it is

nice not to carry it alone anymore.”