running shoes

love is easy

cartwheels on air, flipping pancakes like sunday afternoons and cotton candy

craftbooks and scrapbooks, diary entries starting to thin out in quantity

he says the word “because” with purpose like how your name rolls off his tongue

with a feeling you can’t pinpoint as something conscious

and hazel has never looked more beautiful

relationships are not

you sometimes wonder if you love more, if he does

if your evening runs look more like sprints or marathons

or if either matters so long as you can keep your breath

and the recognition that what is built can be broken like promises and patience

lingers in the pit of your stomach

and so it goes we play dice with this dichotomy like it's something we roll once as a gamble

as if it hasn’t always been anything other than a continuous choice to say

yes, yes, yes

so i roll tens and sixes and fours

and threes and sevens

say yes to each

and let the tide come through