What Love Has Taught Me

Love has taught me how to kiss.  
How to hold her and wrap my legs around her  
and kiss her until my cheeks are as pink as her old bed sheets.  

Love has taught me how to fight,  
to yell, to scream, to bleed,  
and to love and love and love again.  

And love taught me how to mend,  
to stitch together the ripped seams,  
with a sharp needle and trembling fingers,  
with messy stitches that are bound to unravel anyway.  

But love taught me to at least try.  
Try to fix it.  
Try to fix her.  
And if it fails,  
you keep trying until your fingers bleed  
from pricking your finger so many times.  

When I fell in love,  
I learned to sleep on the left side of the bed  
because the right side was hers.  
She liked it because it was directly under the vent  
and that gave her a reason to wrap her arms tighter around my body.  

Falling in love is a lot like learning to ride a bike,  
once you learn you can never really forget  
but sometimes that’s all I want to do.  

I’d rather have scraped elbows and bleeding knees from falling off so many times  
than this feeling I’m feeling right now.  
I know how to ride a bike the same way I know  
how you like your coffee and what to say to make you stop crying.  

Love taught me terror.  
I’ve never been a fan of scary movies  
but I never realized I was living in one.  
Every night on the phone,  
you’re haunting silence lingering in the space  
where your love used to be.  

The way your beautiful ex-girlfriend’s mouth looks so pretty
when she says your name.  
I’m used to way I shake when I see you smile at her  
the way you used to at me.  
I’m accustomed to feeling I get when I realize  
you’re no longer the same.  
I’ve memorized that feeling.  
Love has taught me that nothing lasts forever.