I used to say
love happened to me.

Like weather.

Like bad timing.

Like a door opening
because someone forgot
to lock it.

I used to make it sound accidental,
as if my heart
was some innocent thing
caught standing
in the wrong place
when your name arrived.

But that was not true.

Not with you.

With you,
I looked.

I stayed.

I crossed the hot road
with the sun in my eyes
and every old fear
screaming from the backseat.

I knew.

Maybe not everything.

Not the exact shape
of the hurt.

Not the nights
we would have to sit
in the same silence
and choose not to turn cruel.

Not the way love
would ask me
to become honest
in places
I had spent years
decorating with jokes.

But I knew enough.

I knew your laugh
made the room
less mean.

I knew your hand
on my shoulder
could undo
a whole day
of pretending I was fine.

I knew when you said
my name,
it sounded less like a word
and more like somewhere
I could come home to.

So no…

I did not slip.

I did not trip.

I did not wake up one morning
mysteriously ruined
by tenderness.

I chose you.

On purpose.

With my scared little heart
wide awake.

With my history
still packed
in the passenger seat.

With the desert stretching
gold and endless
on both sides of us,
all heat,
all distance,
all impossible blue
daring us
to mean it.

You looked at me
across the dust
and asked nothing dramatic.

Just,

“Are you coming?”

And God.

That was the whole thing.

Not marry me.

Not save me.

Not promise forever
in a voice too pretty
to survive real life.

Just…

are you coming?

As if love
was not a lightning strike,
but a road.

As if devotion
was not a feeling,
but a direction.

As if I still had time
to decide
who I was going to be
with my one ridiculous life.

So I came.

I chose the road.

The heat.

The stupid snacks
from gas stations.

The songs we played
too loud.

Your fingers drumming
on the steering wheel.

My feet on the dashboard
until you scolded me
like an old man
and I laughed so hard
I nearly spilled my drink.

I chose the little fights
about directions.

The wrong turns.

The motel ice machine
that sounded like
it was dying bravely.

The way you stood
in the doorway at midnight,
holding two paper cups,
and smiled
like even cheap coffee
could be romantic
if we were tired enough.

I chose your bad mood.

Your quiet.

Your pride.

Your soft apology
when the pride finally broke.

I chose the way
you say nothing
when you are overwhelmed,
then reach for my sleeve
like a child
trying not to ask
to be held.

I chose that too.

Especially that.

Because love is easy
when it is shining.

Anyone can want
the golden-hour version.

The pretty photo.

The hand in hand
under a sky
that makes everything look
like proof.

But I wanted you
past the beautiful part.

I wanted you
when the light got harsh.

When the road emptied.

When there was no audience
for our tenderness.

When we were just two people
in a small room
with tired faces,
trying to learn
how not to hurt each other
with the tools
we used to survive.

That is where
I chose you hardest.

Not in the kiss.

In the staying after.

Not in the sparkle.

In the repair.

Not when you were easy to love,
but when loving you
meant putting down my weapon first
and trusting
you would not mistake
my softness
for surrender.

You didn’t.

That is why
I’m still here.

That is why,
when people ask
how it happened,
I no longer pretend
the universe did all the work.

The universe
may have opened the road.

Fine.

But I walked it.

I packed the bag.

I answered the call.

I put my hand
in your open palm
and let the bright, dangerous world
see me do it.

I loved you on purpose.

Not by accident.

Not because I had no choice.

Because I had one.

Because every exit sign
was still glowing.

Because I knew
how to leave.

Because I had left
before.

And still,
there you were…

sun in your hair,
dust on your shoes,
hope in your face
like something reckless
you were trying
to hold steady.

And there I was…

terrified,
tender,
alive enough
to understand
that safety
is not always the same
as never being changed.

So I chose the change.

I chose the ache
of being known.

I chose the risk
of being missed.

I chose the kind of love
that could ruin my loneliness
so completely
I would never be able
to call it peace again.

And if tomorrow
the road bends hard,

if the sky goes dark,

if we have to pull over
and sit together
in the strange silence
of being human,

I will still turn to you.

Not because love
is always easy.

Not because I am fearless.

But because I know now
what my heart looks like
when it is telling the truth.

It looks like me
reaching for your hand.

Again.

On purpose.

It looks like you
squeezing back.

On purpose.

It looks like two people
in all this heat,
all this dust,
all this unfinished life,

not falling blindly
into anything…

but choosing,
with both eyes open,

to keep driving
toward each other.

Words from the Poet

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If this piece lingered with you, these two posts might be lovely to read next.