My Perfect Lies in Broken Bones

I’m dreaming in imperfections.

Your eyes aren’t quite blue or green or brown,
and your smiles curl up
like the worn out pages of a favorite book
crinkling at times with the potential to tear.
In anger your lips will bend back,
ready to unleash arrows with pain-filled tips
yet when the tension eases
you’ll drown the wounds with the same passion
in which you had inflicted them.

Maybe your speech will tangle and trip
with inconsistencies,
betray intent because you can’t quite articulate
what you feel.
So calloused fingers
rough with hard work and ingenuity
will draw all those meanings out on my skin.
I’ll find maps and roads and history in your own
tracing them over muscle and bone,
stumbling on the raised memories of time before I knew you.

The earth will rumble and pitch
your knees will give
your hands will shake,
but I’ll find myself still imbedded in your veins.

You will see all the world’s colors
and still love black and white.
You will not complete me,
you will not fill in the empty spaces between these bones.
You will be a compliment.
You will teach me to fill in my own holes,
I will teach you to do the same.

I’ll find time in the tilt of your head as you listen
silence will bring your hand to mine.
Walls erecting from the straightness of your spine
and then your shoulders,
corners coming together at the bend of your waist
as it cradles my head,
my home built in bone and sinew.
You’ll except that I have windows that are not always you,
windows I’ll lose myself in for hours,
windows that I’ll hold as I tuck myself into the oasis of your side.

I dream of the way you’ll trip
of the way you’ll stumble
of the way you’ll bleed
for me
because of me.
I dream of the strength you’ll give me
when I bleed
because of you
for you.

I dream of your approach,
strong in all the ways I thought you needed to be soft.
You won’t weigh yourself with metal shields
or iron swords
you’ll come armed in coffee
in early morning conversations when sleep is still thick in my limbs,
with silent tendons that wrap around fear I have no way of expressing.
You’ll keep my shadow in its place.
You’ll never look at my body like a fairytale,
but a darkened maze I haven’t yet figured out myself.

I’m dreaming of your imperfections.
My perfect world exists only in those flaws.