I Chose You

A Poem for My Husband

I chose you.
Not because I was tired.
Not because the world
had finally taught me
to want less.

I chose you
because I do not take love lightly.
Because I know
what it costs
to give a life to someone.

And here we are.
Older than we were.
The groceries need buying.
The dog needs walking.
Someone has to remember
to pay the electricity bill.
We know which side of the bed
belongs to whom.
We know how the other
takes their morning brew.
We have become very good
at being a life together.

But I do not want
to become so good at living
that we forget to be alive.

I want to know you
beyond the man
I already know.
I want to meet you again
in cities
where nobody knows our names.
I want to look across a room
and remember
there is still distance
between two bodies
that love can cross.

I want to surprise you.
I want you
to surprise me.

I want to wear the dress.
Miss the train.
Stay out too late.
Make bad decisions
that become good stories.

I want to kiss you
like marriage is not
the end of desire
but the place
we finally became brave enough
to explore it.

I want us to stop behaving
as though growing older
means becoming less hungry.

Less curious.
Less ridiculous.
Less ourselves.

I have spent too much of my life
believing the most beautiful things
were behind me.

I refuse.
I will not make a museum
of my own life.

I will not stand quietly
before the glass
looking at the woman
I used to be.

I am still here.

So are you.

And we have not yet discovered
everything we are capable
of becoming together.

So tell me—

How wild can we make this?
How beautiful?
How erotic?
How creative?
How surprising?

How alive can the life
we chose together
actually become?