By: Em Li
falling in love, they told me, was like
staring at stars from an open field, eyes
basking in the ethereal, lost in the
feeling of something more magical than
your hands can make
falling in love, they told me, was like
looking at a bottle cap and realizing
for the first time, how much beauty
is hidden in the mundane
falling in love, they told me, was
grounding and liberating,
mellow and strong,
contrary only in the best of ways
as if
everything would be okay
as long as you stayed drunk
off the feeling of being
loved
falling in love with you,
i found
was choking on my feelings, throat aching
with sentiments that curdled, dead,
rotting in a bitter mass before they
could pass from my lips to your ears
i envied how easily flowers
bloomed from your tongue, how easily
you could face your affections
and name them, like precious, treasured
things
i envied how easily you began
to call yourself mine, how naturally your
voice settled into that small
notch between my ribs
bright and lemony on rainy days
falling in love with you was an exercise
in contradictions, lying in a ditch,
seeing nothing but a blank bottle cap, but knowing
with certainty
how beautiful you must look basking in the stars,
closing my eyes to imagine me
there beside you
i hated this feeling of being lost
but nothing about the theories i couldn’t
understand, the metaphors made
for someone else, changed
how right it felt to be held
by your knowledge of me,
to have your fingers threaded through
my hair and the ghost
of your lips
etched on my cheekbone
how lovely, this little thing
i can’t quite call “love”