Being in love, like the real kind—the kind that kisses your tears and holds your laughter in its palms—takes courage.

It takes courage to fall in sync with another being, and not just with the parts that mesh without coaxing, but the parts that take time and patience and compromise.

It takes courage for the real kind of love. It takes courage every day, to hold it close, to allow all of yourself to rest. And it takes courage to let it wander, to have your edges stretched like rubber.

There are blessings—not so gentle—in having your love wander from your entanglement. Blessings to know the depth of connection, to know the longing to be held again, to know the desire to be stronger in their absence.

However, there is also heartbreak. Heartbreak in the space created by their temporal leaving. When you are in love and every part of your being has drank from them, no matter how well the logic stands in your mind, your body feels an emptiness that will run rivers until it is held by their sweet smell.

Monsoon of Love

You’ve been etched into my body or maybe

I into yours—wisdom in rock, first-love in bark

Home shaped as each other, my bones

Aligned in yours and our hair

Woven into a rope, holding our feet

Up off the ground. A temporal parting

This may be but my edges

Still wrapped around you, are taught

Sent off in search of you, my light

Burns, whilst I move lightly in my day

Time has her way with me, I am

Heavier in your absence, as if

My body is here but also out there

In search of our air of home.

Just as the sky cracks and flashes

And pours her heart out

I am a monsoon of love,

My love.