Please Keep Loving Me

please

keep loving me

when the thought

of losing

what we are

feels

like death’s cold breath

on the backs

of our necks.

when we are

lumps in throats

and when we are

butterflies

in stomachs.

please keep loving me

when it does not come

so naturally.

when it is not easy,

when it feels

more like work

than like play.

please,

keep loving me.

please keep loving me

when,

through my blind carelessness

or

my dishonesty

I scratch open our old wounds.

when our wild animal hearts

begin to tug at their chains,

cursing everything that holds them home.

please keep loving me.

when your eye wanders

more often than it watches over me,

and when your body lusts for

new adventures,

love me.

if ever the shadow you cast

colors a darker shade

the pillows,

the blankets,

the body of another,

lying

in a place that feels more like

the scene of a terrible crime

than like a home

even then,

especially then…

please keep loving me.

and when old faults are

far behind us,

let’s laugh at the day we’re living

and happily go where it takes us.

let’s hold the brightest of hopes

for tomorrow

and the day after that.

love me

when we make copies of ourselves

and spend decades

mixing in the best ingredients

we each have to offer.

through all of that

as challenging as it will be,

please keep loving me.

one day

those children

will move away

to search for love,

love like their parents had.

and we will make our circle small again.

in times when

our perfect harmony

is the envy

of all of our friends,

of course

you’ll keep loving me

but

love me just as well

when that perfect harmony

is really nothing more

than a mirage our friends see

from their

desolate perspectives.

when I’m the boat

and you are the sea

I’ll try to be a wave

or the wind

or the shore

something more a part of you

than something

to depend on you.

but we can’t help what we are

and for a short time

we may refuse to flow together.

please keep loving me

while we wait for calmer weather,

the safety of low tide.

and then in those last years

when what’s left of old tattoos,

fading blue blotches

are joined

by brown spots of age

marking our crinkled skin,

please keep loving me.

when the house we bought

with money we earned by

selling off

our youthful years

starts

to fall apart.

when the paint chips

and the pipes leak

when our floorboards

and our walls give way to wind

and our hallways

creak and shiver,

when the roof beings

to let in the rain…

when our love pushes up

with the same strength

as the gravity pulling everything down,

we can hold that old house together.

then

when even more years have escaped

and our sons and daughters

come home for the holidays,

they’ll bring us pamphlets from rest homes

in hopes of coaxing us

from the only comfort we’ve ever known,

when that happens darling,

let’s try to remember

they only mean the best for us.

they only mean

the best for all of us.

love me

when they’ve taken us away,

love me

when we’re making new friends

with old souls

smiling at us across card tables

rolling around in parades of wheelchairs,

shuffling by on canes and crutches.

love me

as awe wait out the twilight in buffet lines.

and when we’ve settled on

rusting up

and dying of natural causes,

love me as you watch me

being scooped up off the floor

by a staff of well trained strangers.

before

during

and after all of this

love me.

I will love you.

when my sight finally

begins to fail

as we’re coming to the end

I hope we can still clearly see

the many reasons

we chose

to spend the only lives we had

together.

when all of this truth

comes to be,

please,

please keep loving me.

Read more about the new edition of poetry coming in May

Pre-Orders end April 30th - OrchardCity.net