Tiny Love

We stood far apart, her face squinting in the autumn sun.  

What stood, the distance between us, we call love.

It was invisible and perhaps not there at all.

But we cared for it, careful not to crush the distance by drawing closer.

Irrational thoughts.

I want to rush through it, tear it in two, 

See if it has truly been holding us together.

What if we called it something else, habit?

What if we ran to each other and held ourselves up,

relying on no history at all to protect us?

Live a Tiny Love that survives day by day instead of spreading over decades?

What if we pull all of this out of the basement, 

place it on a tarp in the yard with a sign that says "Free"?

Here is this Great Big Love that everyone can see.

It holds all our successes as well as our failures.

It is a property, immobile.

It is full of children, pets, holidays, fights, distance, loneliness.

When it is shaken free, there will be only us two

and this right-now, Tiny Love, feeding on tiny moments,

taking up only tiny spaces.

I admit, it is an entirely unsafe proposal.

There is no guarantee that, at the center of all this,

there truly exists that Tiny Love.

But if it does not exist, then nothing else does either.

Still, we stood.  

Quiet, our desperate pleas.

Bursting, our hearts to be understood.

Unspoken, the words we longed to say, longed to hear.

She was caring for some creature in need.

I moved.  

I revealed my mind.

I spoke of that love, that habit between us.

I was at the edge of a great and dangerous cliff.

I took one tiny step.