It took me years to realize what falling in love looked like
I thought it was roses jewelry giggly dates and chocolate
Lots of chocolate
I watched the people around me not just fall but fall so hard their lives were meteors engulfed in flames when they crashed through the atmosphere
Totally life altering Totally awe inspiring
Totally destructive
I didn’t know then that love could be gentle That love doesn’t have to be loud
I know platonic love like the back of my hand I know it because a boy I’ve never pictured myself in a romantic comedy montage with is the one that drove me to the hospital after the weight of my rage finally cracked my spine He’s the scar on my left hand where my disease was treated
I know it because a boy who had a crush on me and smacked my ass on a dare is the same one that made sure I knew I was loved while I cried drunk and agonized years later over his best friend He’s the paper cut scar between my fingers where my most loved book betrayed me
And I know the love of my mother and my sister and my brother The smooth skin beneath the ring I never take off
But romantic love that was foreign to me An alien concept unfurling in front of me
I didn’t know I knew what it was the second I met you
It took me time to realize it but love is a body of water Shallow at first and a little cold shocking
The beginning of us was like that a little cold fragile shocking
And then the ground dropped out and we were floating in a new world surprising and gentle drenching our skin and dragging us down
We were treading water learning secrets telling jokes making promises we couldn’t comprehend
You made me remember what it feels like to swim To cut through the water like it’s nothing I was drowning for years and you were my life preserver
That’s what love became for me An ocean and you were the only thing keeping me afloat
It took time before I realized it A thousand heartbeats before I realized I’d rather sink next to you in deafening blackness than ever just tread water again with someone else
I think love became a comparison to water because I looked in your eyes once and I drowned I looked in your eyes the last time and knew you were the place I always wanted to return to
I knew you like every scar on my hands I want every scar every freckle every mark to be you
I was never a meteor not with you I was never on fire searing the world with my intensity with my love
I was safe I was quiet I was alone with you
and somehow the silence, the ripples in our ocean meant so much more than the inferno I had come to think I needed