i’ve started telling people I love them.
it isn’t something I’m afraid of: love,
but it’s something I never say—it seems too significant to blurt out to just anyone,
but i’ve started saying it to my people back home,
and for the first time it feels like a declaration, a reminder,
that the people i choose are significant
in my life, to my life, to me—
but I still hold the word
close to me, like a secret that I can’t tell to just anyone
because I worry that if I start shouting it from the
rooftops, it won’t be that declaration I save
for the ones in my life that I can’t live without–
so I keep it hidden in my thoughts.