Loveletters for Compost Pockets

I have decided to love boldly

Love like the kid who fell in love with every leaf on the ground

Who could not pass a pinecone without stopping to inspect

Each petal of wood

With focused devotion

She would spend hours tracing knots on trees and building worlds behind them

Braiding grass and sculpting rock piles

Late for school because there was too much to adore

I used to tell my mother I loved her every 30 seconds

Filled every silence with it

Until she told me I stripped love of all meaning

(How can a creature so small dilute something so big)

You should only say love when you really mean it

(I never understood that

I meant it every time

I meant it every time)

In a barren blue classroom

The habitat curated in a drawer grew too fertile

Too many legs

Wrong place, wrong time

And love was crushed

Under a teacher’s boot and a letter home

I do not want to save my love

For exceptional circumstances

I want it to pour out of me like shaken champagne

Decadent, bold, indecent

I want the kisses of my feet to make the pavement blush

I want flowers to grow

From my palms and cheeks

Lush and un-shy

Turn my ribs see-through so the world can see the big beating heart of me

I want to bathe my friends in warm honey milk

And talk their ghosts gone

I want bread and roses

And birthday cake for a Tuesday

I want to say it out loud

With every breath and blink

I love you! I love you! I love you!

I mean it! I mean it! I mean it!