Before Breakfast

I like to think we haven’t run out of things to talk about yet.

I like to think we never will.

We can sit around the table, chatting about the weather

until you remember something funny that happened at work.

then I’ll chime in with a story I forgot to tell you last night.

Pretty soon we’ve been sitting there for an hour while our breakfast gets cold,

both knowing the other has to leave soon

but hoping we’re both willing to put off all that we have to do for the day

just to sit at that table a bit longer.

(I’ll just pretend I don’t have anything to do that day).

The love that I feel is pretty new, and I don’t know if I want to call it that yet.

I’ve never felt it before, and though this feeling rushes through me like a wildfire,

I don’t want you to know yet that I’m burning up.

That was cheesy.

I know it was, it’s all I can think of.

Cheesy sayings that you’d laugh at me for saying out loud,

because you’re not ready to admit what this is either.

If I admit that my heart is on fire for you, then you’d have to do the same

(because I know you feel it too, and you’re a terrible liar).

But fires burn out, either in great conflagrations

(a word I know you’d like, along with defenestrate)

or tiny embers.

It can’t keep burning forever,

just like we’re not always going to have things to talk about.

So let’s promise each other this

(or rather, I’ll make the promise and pretend you told me the same):

our love won’t be a fire, it will be a match.

It could burn us both down in the right circumstance, but we won’t let it get to that point.

Just knowing it could burn fast and bright should be enough.