Just Another Love Poem

Lovers have spent lifetimes singing songs and writing poems.
The smitten seem forever spouting sonnets, giving alms.
This is just a love poem, like so many before,
A mystery, like so many before
A glance in an ocean like so many before.
This is just a love poem,

and it is just love.

Love is being lonely for the people that you know
and knowing that knowing them is the greatest thing you've ever done.
Love is hurting just a little every time you see his picture, because all you want is for him to be sitting next to you.
Love is being told "I love you" by too many, too many times, only to finally find the one who says "actions speak louder than words."
Love is pretending to be asleep for just a few more minutes.

Love is finding your "soulmate" and knowing you'll be friends 'til you're dead, old and cold in the grave
because there's something more to love than kisses and fairytales,
lies actors have fed us since placental days,
and the time we spent living in our parents ways
and the questions we ask when we're lost in the haze--
There is nothing I want more, than to tell him how I feel.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

He told me I smelled like deodorant.
Deodorant and menthol--
and this came right after he said that menthol smells weird
It's taken me a while, but I think I know why he loves me

I am mystified by doorknobs, because I've never known how they work
and I'm mystified by hatred of a people because it's no human quirk
and I'm mystified by eyes
and I make lists and I read signs
and I'm analyzing minds
and I never stop thinking or talking or writing or walking and he says

slow down.

Love makes soft men strong
and I've watched it make a strong man soft.

It was when our eyes turned green. Green and glittering crystal
while the birds were walking cirlces 'round the trees
and we were sitting in the breeze making jokes about the past