All That You Are

You are a peacock feather dream catcher hanging from my rearview mirror. You are a thick book of thoughtfully selected mix CDs in the center console. You are the first tip I ever get as a waitress. You are the first million I ever make as a writer. You are the Swiss Alps and the subway into Brooklyn. You are the sun in Peru and the moon in Alaska. You’re an herb garden on the porch. You are the laughter of our daughter getting covered in henna tattoos at a fair. You are love letters scattered all over the hardwood floors. You are a January snow angel, a July burn from the too-hot sand. You are the shadows in your own face and the wrinkles in the corners of mine. You drip with the art of decades spent lost in hazel irises and growing pupils. You are the smell of earth and cucumbers and soap. Your hands are the calloused warmth of lazy Sundays tracing down and up the frame of me, ever-changing. You are affection that doesn’t change. You are the houses we will inhabit, the cities we will conquer, the languages we will speak, the food we will grow, the love we will always feel burning just under our skins.

You’re not just in my future. You are my future.

The tree and the sun. What is one without the other? What would all that I am be without all that you are?