Megan Eaves

What is it you think
I want
some bouquet of conventions,
lame dinners, fakery,
cliched on balloons with coiled ribbons?
Sometimes my words are uncomfortable(y)
My mouth gets it wrong,
what my heart wants.
Romance: it’s not an arc-shot kiss
soundtracked by a hipster ballad;
it’s not anything except when –
being just you – that is enough.
But there are some things I think are romantic:

sending songs, instead of saying it.
whole playlists of feeling.
in-joke emojis
and in-joke everything
like that moment at a party
in a room full of people
you look over and a split-second of eye-contact, you just know.
Trying not to laugh at an in-joke
when someone else says something that is serious
but all you can do is laugh inappropriately
and can’t wait to talk about it, later.
Knowing that song sounds like me.
Kissing in the kitchen.
Making out in a forest;
surviving a night of wild camping
where an argument almost breaks out
and then the stars come out and
your problems are hushed by the universe.
Buying me a coffee
and looking past my facade of strength, the day after my
stepfather dies, to say
“You will feel this, you know. You need to feel this.”
Just being able to be,
let your hair down
swim naked
enjoy the realness of a body unadorned
and to speak out loud, in moments of quiet,
the things we are most afraid of, and still be admired
afterwards.
To fuck up, say the wrong things,
have everything go sideways
and know that you
will still show up.
To hold the memories of what we did
and almost did
in hot springs
so long ago and still wish
for more moments like these.
That you do not fear my wildness
you admire it.

I think that romance
is the courage of being
unafraid in the mirror of your eyes.