I have loved you like rivers love the pull of the moon,
like roots love the weight of the earth
a quiet, unshaken devotion,
deep beneath the places eyes can see.

You do not walk into a room,
you arrive,
soft as candlelight flickering in the hush of midnight,
turning walls into something holy,
something that knows your name.

I have memorized you the way fire knows the shape of wood,
the way old songs know the breath of an open window.
You are the echo of rain against rooftops,
the ghost of salt on sunburnt skin,
the last ember glowing long after the fire is gone.

There is no world where I do not find you.
Even in the silence, you are there
in the pause between heartbeats,
in the spaces where light lingers before dusk takes over.
Your name is written in the dust of my ribs,
whispered through marrow and time.

If love is a house, then you are the key rusted into my palm.
If love is a storm, then you are the wind I lean into.
And if love is time, then I have loved you
long before the first clock ever learned to break.