Love Is Fireworks
A riot of color that screams across the sky,
visible from heaven but never held.
It ****** your eye, burns your sight,
etches the face into your retina like a divine warning:
"You will never see them like this again".
It's never blindness, just an overdose

Then,
Marriage turns blind
Blind to the fire you still carry.
It sees the chores, not the devotion.
It praises the schedule, not the soul.
It forgets the spark that seared your eye
and calls the ash commitment.
Marriage doesn’t ask what you feel, it assumes.
It doesn’t look, it remembers.
And memory is a poor prosthetic for vision.

Loved but still unseen
And that is the blindness
no firework could ever warn you about.

A FOREST encircles us,
'Round our merry abode
Just beyond the river
Where falls the Autumn leaves

Spirits sow and fret
About in the treeline yonder
They laugh and dance;
And snicker at our petty little abode

Every evening of this Autumn
Has been their grandest theatre
The woman with running mascara
And eyes damasked in red

The husband raises his voice,
Like the church's choir bells
He knows not what he wroughts
And only the Forest may ever know

we got married in october.
on the twenty-ninth.
exactly three years after
we both got drunk
to face our feelings
and say the truth out loud.

that was the day
we became us.
messy, imperfect,
a little bit shy.

i still don’t know
how it happened.
as if i wasn’t even there.
it’s like watching us
on hallmark
with a bag of popcorn in hand.

you were exactly
what i needed.
what i longed for.
after so many doubts,
so many wasted breaths —
thank god i kept
rooting for myself.

He laid out some towels
She set a bucket right on top
The outside pitter patter
Echoed closely by drip drop
She plopped down on the couch and said
“I hate our leaky roof…”
He cozied up right next to her
“We’re newlyweds, it’s cute!”

The dog had left a pungent gift
Spread out across the floor
They tied cloth over their noses
Prepared to go to war
They scrubbed the ground on hands and knees
He, unusually mute
She poked his side with smiling eyes
“We’re newlyweds, it’s cute!”

Baby two cried till blue
Every other hour
And baby one learned to run
Too young for such a power
People seemed to judge and stare
Her cheeks turned rosy red
He raised his voice, ignoring glares
“It’s cute! We’re newlyweds!”

She zipped up the dress
He escorted down the aisle
And gave away his baby girl
His heart in full denial
The newfound silence of their home
Was echoed in his head
She played their own first dance song
“It’s cute, we’re newlyweds”

Years spilled by, the kids had kids
Less heed was paid to clocks
Days now passed in reading chairs
With simple meals and long walks
They shuffled down the sidewalk
At a careful, measured pace
Their scooting right in sync,
A peculiar kind of grace
She paused to rub her fingers
His hands were also wrung
She raised her deep-set eyes to his
“Do you ever miss when we were young?”

His wrinkles seemed to lengthen
As a gleam came to his eye
His mind replaying memories
Of leaky roofs and a youthful bride
Then he looked at the woman beside him
Sore with the weight of life
And for a moment he stayed silent
Overwhelmed by his beautiful wife...

“I don’t miss when we were young
Though time has worn us down
The love I had for you back then
Cannot compare to now
I’ll brave a thousand achey bones
Just to take slow walks with you.
Besides,” he took her hand in his
“We’re newlyweds, it’s cute.”

Lock my heart away
With your Skeleton's Key,
Throw it in thine CELLAR;
And may it rest at peace

Lock my soul away
In this dungeon we call home
For I never wish to leave
Our betrothal's Cellar

got together before,
thrived during,
and deepened after.

the world had gone quiet,
streets hushed,
time slowed to a simmer.
we measured days in drinking,
and nights in being together.

that summer,
while you worked,
i found a passion
in building a home —
a craft i had overlooked before.

i baked with my heart,
and cooked with my soul.

my mother was stupefied —
i never, not once,
helped her in my life.
even the way i peeled potatoes
was apparently a crime.

but then,
i created specialties,
dishes from all over the world,
setting time aside each day
to warm your heart
with two courses,
and desserts.

that fire still lives.
i’m so **** good
at what i do —
because food is my love language,
and when i cook,
it’s all for you.

Perhaps all our stars were in the right places
and guiding our lives as some say they do;
perhaps God was planning, perhaps Fate was smiling,
or perhaps it was Chance that brought me to you.

I knew you taught math, started books at the end,
that you loved to travel, to garden, and sing.
When you came through the door, and I learned something new—
that all of my life I’d been looking for you.
Your eyes searched the room, and I quietly prayed,
my heart would have broken if you’d turned away.

But my heart wasn’t broken, you saw me and stayed,
and we shared our stories the way people do.
At first we were cautious, at our age you’re cautious,
our hearts had been broken and mended before,
and there’s just so much breaking a heart can endure.

But God has kept blessing and Fate has kept smiling,
the stars still align, and the years have been kind.
Our genes haven’t failed us, no one has assailed us,
and putting it bluntly, we’ve been very lucky
with so many things that we cannot control.

Here in our shared world, our love has kept growing,
and we’ll go on loving till death do us part.
And whatever comes after, we’ll be there together,
and never forget that our love is forever.

i miss my independence.
this whole holiday –
the point was
for the two of us
to get away.

instead, it lifted the pink fog,
and all i can see
is the change.

us, us, us.
we, we, we.

there’s no space for my thoughts.
where they used to live,
the quiet room
is now a nursery.

and the shift is deafening.

there’s no more me.
just the polite,
domestic ghost
haunting me.

i don’t know
how to have the talk.
this is the first time
i’m handed something
that aims to last.