No Assembly Required

maybe you won’t be a fixer-upper with a trauma binder thicker than your hair.
maybe you won’t smell like old grief and white wine in a travel mug.

maybe you’ll have a therapist.
maybe even one who isn’t your ex.
maybe you’ll actually go.

maybe your idea of foreplay won’t be trauma-dumping over instant ramen and crying during Pixar trailers —
(unless it’s Coco, in which case, same.)
maybe we won’t cut each other with our broken edges.
maybe we’ll use them to build bookshelves and make love in IKEA lighting like the lesbians we were born to be.

maybe you’ll box with me at the gym and lose, gracefully, because I’m scrappy and stacked like a little Irish-Italian tank.

maybe you’ll think it’s hot that I grew up so Catholic that my grandpa was my Eucharistic minister but now I only go to mass on holidays and for existential crises.

maybe you’ll be brave enough to book the cheap Ireland trip with me, in the rainiest season, and kiss me under a pub sign while I eat too many potatoes and cry about colonialism.

maybe you’ll cook dinner without lighting the kitchen on fire.
because you won’t be drunk or dramatic or unhinged.

maybe you’ll call my poems ridiculous but you’ll hang on every word anyway.
and I’ll pretend not to notice when you steal my hoodie and annotate my margins with little hearts.

maybe you’ll teach me to parallel park without yelling at me.
maybe we’ll go skydiving or at least hold hands while I try.

maybe you’ll actually have a passport.
maybe you’ll keep it in one of those cute little leather cases with your initials.

and maybe your emergency contact won’t be “your ex who still pays your phone bill.”

maybe you’ll listen when I say “I think I want to go to Mexico for veneers.”
and you’ll smile with those perfect, normal-sized teeth and say, “okay, babe. Let’s get you some molars worthy of your mouth.”

maybe your eyes will light up every time I mention a new country, a new flight, a new scheme, a new “what if we just packed up and went?”
and you’ll say: “yeah, what if we did?”

maybe you’ll have the social graces to make conversation with my hoity-toity family at some overpriced brunch.
even though I don’t like them — you’ll smile through your mimosa because you love me and then we’ll make fun of them in the car on the way home.

maybe you’ll let me order dessert without rushing me or rolling your eyes.
maybe you’ll even join me.
maybe we’ll share a spoon and laugh so hard the waiter thinks we’re already married.

maybe you’ll add me on Co-Star instead of Snapchat.
(because we’re grown and I want your Mars sign, not your blurry mirror selfies)

maybe we’ll laugh at each other’s jokes and not just the ones we’re telling…
maybe our love will be one long inside joke that no one else gets but us.

maybe we’ll talk about books without one of us lying.
maybe you’ll dog-ear your favorite page and leave it on my pillow next to a cup of tea.

maybe you’ll understand that after a 16-hour shift, I just want to nap, without you yelling, without guilt, without any commentary other than:
“baby, I lit a candle and I’m making grilled cheese when you wake up”
maybe you’ll understand that I work in a hard field and some days I just need to cry.
and maybe you’ll hold me like you’re not afraid of the weight, like you signed up for all of it on purpose.

maybe I won’t be exhausted from carrying two people’s feelings.
maybe love won’t feel like emotional CrossFit.
maybe I’ll finally stop doing charity work in my dating life and start dating a whole-ass person, not a project.

maybe you’ll kiss me like you’re not scared of staying.
and I’ll kiss you like I believe it.