love letters for her

living in love

Mi Amor:

I still choose you, day after day — that’s where I am.

Our black morning coffee is steaming. I sit. You hand it to me softly, touch my wrist, and I see your eyes surveying; they’re as brown and wide as the Park Lake we live on, and I know they’re saying — I love you.
I love you, too, even while I struggle with my anxiety.
I love you despite bringing my past trauma and suffering into this thing we call love.
I love you even while I attempt to run away from something I can’t see.
I love you even as I try to break down this idea of what a “thriving relationship” is.

Then, as I sip my coffee, I tuba-trumpet fart accidentally, like a blank-faced baboon. We giggle like two middle school kids in the back of our homeroom. Still, I choose you.

“Will you dance with me, mi amor?”

“Yes,” she says, smiling, as I press her soft stomach against me.

“1–2–3… 4–5–6. Salsa is beautiful before work, isn’t it?”

I teach her the steps even though she is South American and I’m Northern Michigander.

The irony.

Yet, every night, every day, every moment, I keep making these commitments to you in my head, but then my anxiety ruins it. I wake up and think about you. I go to sleep and think about you. I worry about you. I worry about…