Facts About Love

(poems go here) In second grade a boy told me he loved me so much he would die for me. I told him that when boy eagles want lady eagles they lock talons and spin through the air and whoever holds on the longest wins but sometimes they both crash into the ground and die so that isn’t really a good game for anyone is it. He cried and told the teacher he felt sick. Sometimes animals just understand love better than humans. When I first met you I said that I was an awkward hand holder because I am never sure where to put my fingers in yours. You told me that otters hold hands when they sleep so that they don’t float apart in the sea, and otters never have trouble with their fingers fitting together. We danced on our first date and butterflies taste with their feet. When you kept stepping on mine, I could tell how sweet you were and how sweet this would be. A shrimp’s heart is in its head but I knew down to the soles of my sore feet that this was not going to take much thinking or involve much logic. I knew from then on that I didn’t have to play dolphin and sleep with one eye open to be sure you were close by. Emus can’t walk backwards and I never have to worry about you sneaking away from me. The first time we fought you told me not to bite your head off about something so stupid. I told you that after a praying mantis couple has sex, the female bites the male’s head off and sucks out his guts, so maybe you should be glad that you still have all of your internal organs. But I never want our fights to hurt like bee stings, or like ants. Mating ants have wings and once they are done mating the males wings fall off. I am not sure if I could live with myself If I was keeping you on the ground. Sometimes I wish I were a sheep because they have 4 stomachs and I still can’t digest how this has worked, and you are such a good cook. Your love makes me feel like a hedgehog because their hearts beat 300 times a minute and my chest is pounding just thinking about being with you. I want to be in elephants with you because even though they are one of the largest creatures on earth, the flirt and cuddle and give each other gifts and elephant hugs for months before making a move. I want to be in bear with you because a pair of them will cuddle for extended periods of time before they part. Most people fall in love 7 times before they get married and I am only 17 but maybe I we could marry the first time we gave each other eskimo kisses because dogs have unique nose prints like humans have fingerprints and it is still amazing to me that our different noses feel so alike when they are pressed together. The human heart weighs less than a pound so even if we are fighting I will never worry about a heavy heart with you. Still sometimes I am at a loss for words and I don’t know what to tell you other than the fact that a giraffe’s heart weighs 22 pounds and that somebody once told me when flies fall in love, their entire brain is rewired to only know loving each other. And if it seems kind of silly to compare us to animals remember that we share 70% of our DNA with slugs and we are really just fancy monkeys. By the way, monkeys will sing to each other as a sign of love and affection and maybe I’m not the best at singing but I will try to songbird you into staying because my hands are starting to feel like an otter’s in yours. I know you will hold on, and I never have to worry about floating away. I don’t have to think about where my fingers go anymore.