Love is Burping at the Table

A man in a time before pants were commonplace.

Once wrote

Love is patient

Love is kind

It does not envy

It does not boast

It is not proud

Love is not rude

It is not self-seeking

it is not easily angered

it keeps no records of wrongs

Love never fails

He claimed these were the words of God.

I call bullshit.

Love isn't patient

Love is not kind

Love is not without envy

Love boasts, often gleefully

Love is both proud, and prideful

Love can be rude

It can be self-seeking

Easily angered

And sometimes there is a ledger of every wrong step

Love fails.

But love can be wonderful in its imperfection

Love's kindness comes in gentleness

In shared glances

In conversations had without words

Over wine, over dinner, over the moon

Love is jealous, but it communicates,

It understands

It moves forward.

Love without pride in itself is shame,

And there is no room for shame

When lovers touch and kiss

Sleeping tangled like a thicket

Full of shared jokes and secrets.

Love can be rude in its comforts

Familiarity breeds farting during movies

And burping at the table

And laughter, laughter, laughter

Love means wanting only that which you have.

It means self-care, through mutual affection.

And the more you love, the more you get

So

Fucking

Mad

But also the more you

Forgive

So

Much

Harder

Love can mean keeping a record of all the hurts

The missteps

The small betrayals

That come with ordinary life

And it also means choosing to let that ledger collect dust.

Love fails,

But what it never does

Is fail to leave you breathless

With wonder.