To the Boy Who Stayed

You didn't bring flowers. You brought takeout and the correct opinion about the show I was watching. This is how I knew. Not from a speech. Not from a gesture that belonged in a movie neither of us would actually enjoy. But from the way you sat on my terrible couch and said nothing for forty minutes while I cried about something that wasn't about you and you didn't make it about you. You are not perfect. You leave cabinets open like a man who has never been haunted by a cabinet door. You think loading the dishwasher is a creative art and you are wrong. But. When I am anxious you put your hand on the back of my neck— not a grip, not a fix, just a weight that says: I'm here and I'm not going anywhere and your brain is lying to you again. I didn't think I'd write a poem about a boyfriend. It felt too small a word for what you are. You are the person who makes my mornings less sharp. The person who turned my apartment into a place I actually want to come home to. You are not a love poem. You are better. You are a Tuesday poem. An ordinary poem. The kind that doesn't try to be beautiful and somehow is.