I was not real
until I was 23.
I started to take form
with Celta,
and then
I
faded,
with her
death.

At 26, I arrived in Wilmington.
After a few months,
I met, you,
Lynn
without thoughts of
prior loss.

By 27—unambiguously,
by our first anniversary—
I declared
I love you.
And you declared,
to me,
I love you.

I love you loving me -
I mean I have feelings of
joy
knowing you
are
having feelings of
love
for me.

You love me loving you -
Or (more correctly)
you have told me
verbally and nonverbally,
about your joy
that comes from
signs
of me loving you.

At 28,
I saw love take a new
form.
 A clerk in a jewelry store
looked at us
or you,
 and said,
“Your fiancé
can pick this up on
Monday.”

She said
fiancé!

That was my
first moment
of joy
that surpassed
prior
experiences.

I have seen
and been filled with
astonishment
at the sight of your tears
of joy
at the sight of
the ring -
the ring we
chose
together.

Your tears
your joy
created reciprocally
expanding
mutual experienced
joy…

Initially,
I was baffled -
where is the drama?
Where is the surprise
that could elicit
this reaction
now.

I felt this growing
singular
joy
because I believed
your reaction
was a sign
of your joy
or your love?
Or a sign of
our love?

I experienced what I believed
to be your experience —
and that believing
co-created something
neither of us could have
reached
alone.

A singular awe.
Made of two.

I would be unhappy
if I did not have your love.
I know this because
I was once unhappy and unloved.
There was a time
when I did not know this feeling—
this way of existing,
and experiencing existence.

Years later,
I am told what this must mean.
That I should say
I did not need
this.
That I must have
loved myself
first.

At this time,
Much later in my life,
I let the truth slip out—
that when I am loved,
I feel different.
I act differently.
I am more myself.

Common wisdom insists
that I was wrong and
I was made to feel embarrassed
for needing to be accepted as I am.

I would have to go back to
way back when—
when we loved each other—
and discover a different
understanding
a different explanation…
Instead of the truth
that at that time
without our knowing
there was something else
besides the truth that
without our love
something essential would have been missing.
Not desired.
Needed.