Debris

Sunshine through a dusty window onto clean floors

Cold wind tangling two heads of hair against two faces

The burn of climbing many stairs

Hand-holding this way and that

pinky-linking_index;

pinky-linking-pinky.

Warm leather/fuzzy passenger seats and

Dashboards cluttered with artifacts of a busy day.

This is what love feels like to me.

A lover breaking your favorite dish only for you to find a replacement a year later, 

Alone at the thrift store.

Staining towels and clothing, scrunching noses and tugging arms

Criss crossed on the floor or kneeling, huddled against the back of the couch observing the street. 

All these

moments in time.

Love does not exist without them, 

strings of warmth that get cut and left to roam like loose hairs that collect around the feet of park benches or on the grippmats of bars at close. 

I hold them close like in a locket

like under my pillow

like in my glove box under the napkins that fluttered from the drive-thru window and 

like in the tooth-fairy box the school nurse gave me before I knew you or her or him

And on the very best of days

when any form of weather feels like it was summoned to comfort me, 

I feel cracked open,

palms out and

injected with fragility.