Like broken homemade gifts,
meaningful once to us,
while we remembered why,
or the pretty pebbles
we gathered everywhere we went
to remind us of happy times,
shiny while wet from the ocean,
now dry and dull,
all jumbled in a pile, abandoned
with other mixed-up memories
in a long-forgotten drawer,
time took our love story
and crumbled it between its fingers.
It was no more the shiny toy, the pearl
that adorned our night and days
and made life worth the hassle.
It now is an atherosclerotic love
naked, loud, and impossible to ignore,
unavoidably alive and still,
a poor excuse for a dedicated life.
That we cling to it is human
– it is the raft, the ledge, the hand.
That we learn to love through it
is the proof of our commitment.
But at the end, when we are alone,
or better said: when we are aware
as never before of being alone,
is this badge of honor made of gold or paper?
Still, we get in bed together,
as every night, and as every night
my hands depart in search of you
– my hands that have learnt to touch you
with a discernment that only comes
from decades of practice and good will –
and when they find the holy heat
that marks the boundary
between you and the universe
I briefly understand
and I can briefly be
at peace with myself.