What It Feels Like to Love a Poet

Your words have a mind of their own.
They dance suggestively with my wounds,
Irritating the scab of decisions I've made up in my own mind.
Last night,
I was a fly,
Who tripped in the same place I fell before. Trapped,
In a web of memories.
Of who we used to be.
Two women,
Laughing so hard our guts would cry out in protest.
Companions.
These days,
I feel silenced when you speak,
Less likely to shout praise.
While you hold the crowds' attention
Like a promise
Made to those who came before you.
But they couldn't possibly see you like I do.
Solider.
But woman,
With deliberate glances.
And magic in your smile.
Holding my heartbeat in the cracks of your hands,
Soft and delicate.
You harness a power here.
In this dimly lit room.
Where the shadows dance
On paintings of Black artists,
Surely to be mishonored in time.
Their legacy,
Blending into the backdrop of your skin.
You illuminate.
There is no one else in this moment but me.
Reliving what it felt like to be loved by you,
Whole.
You have a different love for me now.
All jokes and no hard feelings.
But I am messy and careless with my ego.
Looking for pieces of our love that was lost,
When you were broken.
I can't remember life when I didn't feel broken.
But it is the cross I bear,
Because my love is too expansive,
To be thrown back in my face.
And I can't understand why you never realized that.
Or how you could question the love felt for you.
There is royalty,
But you,
Are the earth that keeps me grounded and spinning.
Your truth,
On that stage,
Is proof that even though change is constant,
Everything comes back to the beginning.
And we can exsist where we started.
Differently.
You are still my compliment.