Define Love

Some days it’s the ache that blossoms in between my sternum and stomach.

The soft center of cardamom bread, sugar on my lips, a hole filled blanket stretched across bare legs.

Hands on my waist. Her fingers braiding my short hair into two chunky fishtails that dissolve as we dance.

Some days, it’s swaying in the damp basement of a Seattle dive bar buoyed by the beauty of so many bodies near to mine.

It’s holding tight to each other when it’s just us and the macaroni cheese we made is sitting,

still warm, on the kitchen table.

What it feels like to sit on the swell of Breakneck Ridge and watch the Hudson breathe blue and crisp in the early morning. What it feels like to wake up in a double bed and sink into the gratitude that this delicious day is all mine. What it feels like to remember sun in the heart of winter.

It’s meeting someone who shares the same name as my best friend/brother/mother and find myself suddenly filled with the sweetness of recognition.

It’s hearing the Thundamentals’ “Something That I Said” blare from the windows of a passing car. My favorite song, moving by.

It’s Ella Fitzgerald too. And Jonathan Richman. And the grizzly roar of Dave Van Ronk on my father’s record player.

Some days, it’s finding the perfect gift for my friend and the shock of happiness I feel thinking that I might make some small part of her day.

The crush I harbor on the drummer from the band I saw once or twice, the feel of warm water sliding down my shoulders after work.

The pearly-grey of the February sky, loose sketches for unwritten stories and future travels.

New socks, old sweater, my grandmother’s voice on the phone.

The ache blossoming in between my sternum and stomach that feeds on the small things, the sweet things, the day-to-day.

What it feels like to read a beloved book for the first time, and know I’ll never run out of ways to be jolted back into being.

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