the tall long lean slant of your thighs torso arms neck even fingers

the taste that is better than mine, putting me in the position of wide-eyed wonder at a sunset, of learning, or being a student forever instead of an authority of craft compromising with mediocrity

the reverence for history, literature, the heroics of those who have served this Earth and the animals and humanity upon it, bending that arc toward justice.

the joy, the replies and exclamations and delights and steel spine that manifests in positive outlook at little chaoses, I never noticed to miss it until they was gone

the money enough, together, to feast at the table of this world I’ve hustled for so long to earn our way into

we have none of that.

And yet we are good, human, imperfect lovers, resolute and devoted to kindness and figuring it out. Still this will be a harder path than what I might choose, and I think in frustrated moments that I am not what you want, in my failings, too, or either.

And so while the future is yet unwritten, it comes into focus, and we must decide whether to swerve or plunge into the challenge that is our futures, together.