It's Christmas break, so I'm surrounded by people I love and thinking a lot about how much I love them. Of course relationships are messy, and no one is perfect. But as I spend time with family and friends, I am reminded that it's the imperfections and the oddities that make these people special. I love them the way they are and I wouldn't change them for the world.

I should mention, also, that the first draft of this poem was written on a cursive typewriter. I love how quick it is to write a poem by typewriter, and how satisfying it is to create something that looks so beautiful. I like to write poems by typewriter that are already done and unedited. I did make a few changes to this as I typed it into a computer — but not many. There's something beautifully final about a typewriter poem that doesn't come with any other medium.

With that being said, here's a love poem.

Love like filtered sunlight,
stripped of impurity
we are the dust particles
lost along the way.
Our flaws removed, with them
the essence of our
imperfections. Memories
we worked so hard to build.
We are the messes we've made,
the layers of skin
we have acquired
through aching and tears.

We are the broken
bits of stone,
the water-worn pebbles
collected by a child's hand,
the leftover wind
of wishes long forgotten.

Smooth out our rough edges
and see how much
is missing. Don't take away
the pain of our
missing each other,
for it has glued our hearts
together, taught us
to give thanks.

Love like sunlight, and we
are the bits of sky
flying to find each other.
Only we can feel
the sparks burn, feel
the certainty. The belonging.

I won't ignore the dark spots,
but I won't abandon
the light. I will wait
however long it takes
to catch fire.