To understand how I got to this point is
To ask a man to uproot weeds
clinging to the webs of his own feet
To see through the fog tints in a boy who
Saw original sin as a function of a father’s lies
A chemical reaction to the scents
from my first crush’s beautiful strands
A few blinks and a smile misinterpreted as a forever keepsake
A first kiss from a beautiful Dominican girl six years my senior
And coming back only two years later to
her first child from some other guy
Much more handsome and much less present
Sit-downs with an unromantic stepfather
discussing pregnancy to an adolescent
The way cops put handcuffs on newborns
for re-opening the womb
I understood love this way,
from so far away
I couldn’t understand how
from an icy space
arose stars ablaze in its brilliance
Or how love is at its most potent when allowed
to penetrate all celestial beings in its radius
In the process of accepting love,
one must reciprocate as much as possible
In making love,
one must already possess the recipe
In losing love,
one must learn to lose that part of you
and regenerate anew
Because only through suffering
do the emotions we call love become self-realized
Understanding replaces apologies,
deep breaths replace yells
And the street sign on this path will read “Way of Life” ..