Every Thirty Seconds

Every thirty seconds, two people fall in love.

At least… they might.

I’m not really sure,

because we have never been very good at defining love,

let alone studying it,

and love isn’t a quantifiable subject

or a species to be poked and prodded

by eighth graders in a fluorescent lit classroom anyway.

Here’s what I do know.

Every thirty seconds, I fall in love with you again.

Because that’s the longest I can go without thinking about you,

the longest my feeble mind can focus on something,

anything else,

before sliding right back to you,

you, and your smile,

you, and your heart,

you, and me,

and the thousands of seconds we have spent

together.

Some mornings i wake up breathless,

stunned back to life by the promise of another day,

another thirty seconds

of discovering what it means

to be loved.

If every poem I wrote would make you smile,

I would empty the world of metaphors,

perpetually stain my hands with ink,

learn every word in the English language,

and give them all to you.

And if I could boil down every poem,

simmer it and watch the steam disappear into our air,

this is what I would be left with:

I love you.

I love you because I know I would be okay without you,

and I love you because

I didn’t lose my heart to you,

I found my own.

I love you not because I’m sure

we’ll be together forever,

but because you make now feel like forever,

you make the world slow down,

make time skip a beat,

you make me feel

infinite.