Confounded

Loving you is just confusing. 
I am confounded by what you have become to me.

See, I thought affection was a chore. Somewhere along the way, my heart learned to believe that love was like one person straining to do the work of two, back aching from constantly carrying the weight of someone else’s regret, and resignation, one thousand crossed wires, troubleshooting this refusal of trust,

but with you, this new freedom is confusing,

and what’s more, I am starting to believe it’s not in danger of disappearing suddenly – I am perplexed by the depth of this apparent reality.

Life with you is undeterred abundance.
Like yoga poses, we will unfold slowly,
let this love-body blossom, never forcing,
never straining our muscles of need.
We’re saying yes to the practice, the discipline, the constant shape of togetherness, strength and beauty in our decision.

You were not a lightning bolt from the sky, cupids arrow, or a fiery goddess appearing in my dreams,

You were metamorphosis. All I know is that I know; that when you said yes to this possibility, I woke up the next day and everything was a different.

Adventure emerging, flag of trust unfurling, magnetism, you delight me.

Draped over my wintertime, the spring of you, piercing gaze; when we set a timer on your iPhone and stare at each other for four minutes solid, and it feels like ten seconds. When I bring you papaya in a little plastic bag, and kiss you in the back room by the freezer, mouth full of chaos and flurry of feathers and light.

I want to live vicariously through you, perch precariously with you, commune with you and consume your every movement, while overhead every winged creature watches and whispers.
Shepherdess of loveliness, strong lioness, this is a new horizon for us.

This hunting and gathering will last our whole lifetime; we will be lost in the green wild.
Stalking joy in its natural habitat, drinking in goodness, find us in our prime.
There is no such thing as mundane, when we fit together, like we were made to dance this way, in pouring rain, in dimly lit cafe, on your single mattress, we only take up space for one, anyway.

Wandering, ponderous, luxurious, continuous.
Sleep well, you are the best Saturday of my life thus far.

Relief, release, remembering, responsibility, renewal;
my instinct is that we are building something beautiful and powerful,
and I am purely confounded.

Wendell Berry, pulp fiction, road trip, front flip, kaleidoscope when we kiss,
ca-caw, canadiana, barber-shop quartet, pineapple mosaic;

1!!/ I forgot how to write shit when I realized I loved you.

[Photo of artwork by Emil Jakob Schindler, Pax, 1891]