Empty Lines and Empty Times

Inside Every Cliche

Ever since I met you I wanted to romanticize everything about you.
I wanted to think beautiful things
About how everything you owned was weathered:
The cracked leather of your car seats,
The worn jeans with one hole on the knee,
And on the back left pocket.
How dumb of me not to realize
That everything was weathered from the storm that lives inside your eyes;
The thunder that cracks when you cry,
And the lightning that scatters and sizzles
When you bare your teeth to smile.
And the rain,
The soft, warm rain that brings the smell of home,
And familiarity,
And acceptance.
How I prayed to never see the storm quell, to never see you without the life that lived in your joints,
No matter how loudly they creak.
And though I know you hate the sea
I can't help but feel the waves ebb and flow with the rhythm in which you hold me close,
A heart beating loudly beside one who's every beat is nothing short of a blessing to me.