May eighteenth.
They said, “One day you’ll be famous, girl,” but what they really meant was that you’ll die in an un-extraordinary way, after a life with a lot of cheap champagne, and they can only hope the best for the love you leave to rest, but they’ll judge you along the way. Honey, every step you ever take. You won’t be famous, but they’ll still watch you everyday.
I am not the first person you loved.
You are not the first person I looked at
with a mouthful of forevers. We
have both known loss like the sharp edge
of a knife. We have both lived with lips
more scar tissue than skin. Our love came
unannounced in the middle of the night.
Our love came when we’d given up
on asking love to come. I think
that has to be part
of its miracle.
This is how we heal.
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You
will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms
will bandage and we will press promises
between us like flowers in a book.
I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat
on your skin. I will write novels to the scar
on your nose. I will write a dictionary
of all the words I have used trying
to describe the way it feels to have finally,
finally found you.
And I will not be afraid
of your scars.
I know sometimes
it’s still hard to let me see you
in all your cracked perfection,
but please know:
whether it’s the days you burn
more brilliant than the sun
or the nights you collapse into my lap
your body broken into a thousand questions,
you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I will love you when you are a still day.
I will love you when you are a hurricane.
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask—half our great theological and metaphysical problems—are like that.
DiCaprio and Mulligan, meanwhile, don’t seem like star-crossed lovers so much as a delusional man in love with a bauble of a woman. Maybe that’s intentional?
” and after you have suffered
a little while,
the God
of all grace,
who has called you
to His eternal glory
in Christ,
will Himself
restore,
confirm,
strengthen,
and establish
you. “1 peter 5:10
