Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7
If I had realized at the beginning
how many bones compassion breaks,
how it pulls ligaments and tendons apart,
snaps fibers like shoddy thread,
grinds joints dry with its gold weight
If I had known at the beginning,
how agape spills lymph,
drinks bile,
leaks plasma
from the holes it bores in strong things,
drinks them dry and shaking,
spends them in the sand
If I had believed at the beginning
that love lives in the ache
of oxygen-starved muscles,
the creak and drag of arthritic fingers,
the grimace of pain when a scar breaks open,
the numbness of weight
on decade-old shoulders
Maybe, I would have shuddered
and braced myself for the first
I love you
No comments:
Post a Comment