My Everlasting Love

Hey you,

I don’t know your name yet,

but I need you to know this:

waiting for you is the opposite of being alone.

Every year I lived before finding you was not time wasted,

but a portal to right here.

I am already more yours than you could ever imagine,

so close you probably look right past the spot where I am waiting

when you wonder where your person is.

It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted.

But imagine me now,

walking the future chambers of your heart,

pressing my palms to the soft walls of the life we haven't built yet.

Why did no one tell us that searching for love

is just getting ready to be reincarnated in a stranger

who was always meant to be home?

Ask me the altitude of my future,

and I will answer, “How tall are you?”

In my back pocket is a love note

with every word I am saving up to tell you.

At night I sit ecstatic at the loom

weaving patience into all my current loneliness.

All day I listen to the radio of the songs

I know we are going to drive around screaming together.

Yes, I will love every secret you think is too dark to share,

and love you more for everything you fear

might make me love you less.

Every time my heart got broken in the past,

every time I picked up the shattered pieces off the floor and put myself back together,

it wasn't a loss.

It was just my heart making space,

stretching its walls wide enough to hold a love as big as yours.

With every tear I ever cried over the wrong people,

I became more sure that when I finally meet you,

I am going to love you so much more for having survived the wait.

People have been trying to capture this forever.

They built giant Taj Mahals out of marble

and carved temple walls just to say what I am feeling right now.

When ancient sailors looked up at the North Star in the middle of a dark ocean,

they were just trying to find their way to a warmth like yours.

In ancient Rome, lovers threw coins into fountains

hoping the gods would bring them the one person meant for their soul.

I think all those coins in the water were just collective prayers

leading us to each other across centuries.

I want to make a quiet sanctuary out of my hands just for you.

I am going to learn the map of your worst days

so I know exactly where to leave the hot tea and the soft light.

I am going to build a fortress out of my patience on the days you feel too small,

and when the world gets too loud,

I will be the quiet porch you sit on until the storm passes.

I will celebrate the tiny victories nobody else notices,

like the way you take a deep breath before you choose to be brave.

I will hold your fragile moments like they are sacred glass,

and I will never, ever make you apologize for the size of your heart.

Look at your fridge right now,

bare or holding up old receipts and grocery lists.

In our future, it will be covered in little notes I left you,

silly drawings and terrible jokes scribbled on scrap paper

just to catch you off guard on a Tuesday morning

and make you laugh before your coffee is even brewed.

There will be polaroids tucked under tiny magnets,

reminders that you are adored,

and a list of all the inside jokes we haven't even invented yet.

Look at your passenger seat right now,

empty or holding your bag on the drive home from work.

In our future, I will be sitting there picking the songs,

handing you fries over the center console,

resting my hand on your knee while we sit in traffic,

and making the most ordinary errands feel like a road trip with my favorite person.

Look at the corner of your couch right now,

just a throw pillow holding the space where nobody is sitting.

In our future, it will be where I tuck my cold feet under your legs,

where we steal the blanket back and forth during movies,

and where you will fall asleep with your head in my lap

while I quiet my breathing just so I do not wake you up.

When you cry right now, before we have even met,

I am sending invisible thread to guide your tears

toward the garden of kisses I haven't gotten to plant on your cheek yet,

so you know they are already perennials.

Forgive me for taking so long to cross your path.

One day you will understand.

One day you will know why I read the poetry of our future to the stars,

and they are all the more excited.

There is nothing I want for now,

knowing that one morning soon,

I will get to open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile.

I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is making out of your life right now,

all your deep seated fears playing musical chairs,

laughing about how real they are not.

My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your future bones,

waiting is the opposite of being alone.

I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples,

I am already more with you than I ever was before.

Do you understand?

It was me who sent that soft breeze through your window last night

when you felt like nobody got you.

It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest

the last day you feared you would never find the right person.

I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth.

I promise one day we will be sitting on the floor of our kitchen

and you will say it too,

I can’t believe I ever thought I was living this life without you.