a poem by Roger B. Rueda
When we love,
we begin folding the laundry
a little slower—shirts turned inside out
made right again, the collar smoothed,
creases coaxed into surrender.
We stir coffee with both hands,
as if balance could be tasted.
We remember birthdays,
but more than that,
we remember how they like their silence—
dimmed like a bedside lamp,
not switched off completely.
We begin to say I'm sorry
without the armor
of explanation. We stop
talking over their sadness,
and learn instead
to make room in our laps
for the weight of it.
Love makes us rearrange the bookshelf,
keep the plants alive.
It teaches us to read
between sighs, to trace
a shoulder as if it were
a sentence unraveling.
And slowly,
we find that we are no longer
who we were before the loving.
Not saints, not poets—
but better in the ways that count:
gentler in goodbye,
quicker to return,
willing to stay
even when the door is open
and the world calls us
by our old names.
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