I Love Her, I Do

I love her, I do. I love her, but she is the most fragile human being. It’s like walking around with a porcelain doll on your shoulders. The fall and break and shatter are inevitable but I don’t think I’ll ever know how to pick up the pieces and put them back together. Watching my tongue around her is like tip-toeing past a lion’s den. My heart lives in my throat, blocking the utterance of any words, too afraid to wake the lioness from her slumber. Being with her is like standing between the hunter and the fawn. Her—the fawn. The world—the hunter. I can only protect her for so long, then I take the blow and she takes the shock. While I lie there, motionless, emotionless. You frolic off, and I don’t know when I will run into you again. Loving her, Loving her is like spotting the rainbow after the flood. It’s like seeing those first flames conjured up in those ancient caves. It’s like God’s greatest gift to man, to me. If I never knew you, would I ever feel the way I do? Still though grief and fear and sorrow are your best friends and only my close acquaintances. I thank you for introducing us. I wonder sometimes if I am the sick one and not you. Why don’t I feel things the way you do? Why is peace so easy for me and why does it always taunt you from a distance? Thank you for saving me from that middle-class American fairytale. That was too much happiness that I would never have understood if it weren’t for you. I love her, I do.