To Love
To love is to know someone.
To know the shape of their days
without needing to ask.
To know what time they wake up,
when they take lunch,
when they are probably stuck in traffic,
when they are most likely laughing,
when they are asleep.
To look at the clock and think...
It is 10:43.
They are probably in a meeting.
It is 18:17.
Maybe they are cooking.
Maybe they forgot to eat again.
To love is to carry little pieces of another person's life
inside your ordinary moments.
To know what stories they tell too often.
What they order at restaurants.
What silence means from them.
To know the difference between
"I am okay"
and
"I am okay."
To love is to notice.
To notice the way they change.
To notice when they are quieter than usual.
To remember things they never asked you to remember.
To love is to know
that one day you may have to let go.
Not because the love was not real.
Not because anyone failed.
But because people leave.
Sometimes through distance.
Sometimes through endings.
Sometimes through death.
Sometimes simply because life keeps moving.
And to love is to understand this
before you begin.
To know that one day
you may mourn.
Not only the person,
but the routine.
The good morning texts.
The inside jokes.
The reaching for your phone.
The instinct to tell them first.
To love is
To mourn the connection.
To mourn the version of yourself
that existed beside them.
Whether it lasted three weeks,
three months,
or three years.
And to know that short love
is still love.
That love does not become less sacred
because it ended.
To love is to stand in the doorway of impermanence
and walk in anyway.
To say..
I know this may hurt me.
I know one day I may grieve this.
And I will love nonetheless.
Maybe one day
I will write a poem called To Be Loved.
Maybe one day
I will know what it feels like
to be known this carefully,
to be remembered this softly,
to be chosen this gently.
But for now...
this is a poem about loving.
About me loving someone.
And maybe that is enough for today.