Revisionist Poetry – LOVE, v2.

i’m not sure what love is,
only what it does.

i love a smile that tugs me under
—an invitation, small and blunt—
so my mouth answers with a borrowed grin,
so my chest rehearses missing before you leave.

i love the eyes that keep a temple
behind their light, a place I want to baptize myself in
and learn the slow map of your scars.

i love hands that settle as if they’ve always known
the exact temperature of mine,
hands that say a poem by reading the knuckles.

i love hugs that fold me like a hat,
that pry open the ribs and lend me breath.

i love words that rearrange my stubborn furniture,
questions that pry out assumptions and return me new.

i love giggles that authorize my foolishness,
snuggles that trade warmth and a sudden, honest kiss.

i love a mind that gives without counting,
hungry to know, generous to explain —
a mind that meets my obsessions with its own.

i love a day that starts with the picture of your smile
and ends with the country of your voice saying goodnight.

i love arguments that strip my soft armour
and leave me kinder to the person inside.

i love the clumsy artists who cheer other clumsy artists —
those who cannot sell but will sell a light to a friend.

i love the courage that turns every small failing
into a new invention of hope.

i love the heart that keeps renovating itself,
brick by honest brick.

i find all these things in you—
and more, always more, like rooms I haven’t walked into.

if love is anything, it is this inventory
that keeps expanding, and so, quietly,
i say: i love you.