Your words wrap around my neck
like a noose that was not tied tight enough
to hang you up high enough,
and I can never seem to put my feelings
into sentences that are able
to make you see that I am absolutely
nothing without you.

See, there are a hundred languages
and a thousand different ways
that I could tell you that your smile,
in the morning, looks like breathing.
They cluck their tongues in some tribes,
they say ‘beautiful’ through hand movements
and eyelash flutters,
but I can only whisper it,
over and over,
against the corner of your mouth,
like a mantra or a prayer
‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’

But do you think love itself
could become its own language?
Could we use sympathy,
and stanzas to tell each other
that love is able to overcome
any obstacle,
and that when we are together
we are a match, we are striking
that we put forest fires to shame?

I realize, now, that we do not need
a hundred languages,
and we might not even need the one,
because when I look at you, with my eyes,
with my fondness, even for a second
I see you new, like it’s the first time
I learned how to speak.