I Do Not Love You

 

I do not love you as if you were my mate, my partner for life. Such frivolities could never encompass the depth and bounds of my love.

I love you as if the last fibers of my being exist solely to wrap themselves around you and together sustain life.

I love as if breathing were secondary to the pulsing of our veins 

because life is only granted 

because the two of us together are so much stronger than we ever apart

Because where two mountains stand, the sky is held aloft.

I love you for the fire and the ice and the tepid waters in between.

The way you make me feel a million things all at once

And yet so vulnerable under your gaze.

I love the gentleness of your voice and the strength in your touch and the way the colors dance in your wind. 

Because this world revolves around us -- a force to be reckoned with. Unstoppable.

I love you as if every heartbeat were my last because my dying days are just like our beginning days and every second in between I want to spend with you.

I love you as the sun rises and warms the earth and as the moon sees us back to sleep and with every pull of the tides because it all ebbs and flows back to you.

And with all my quirks and inefficiencies, you still manage to look at me as if I’m the only one and for this and so much more, I love you doesn’t begin to scratch the surface.

Rachael Collins