Every June night without fail my grandma informs me I am too young
to know what love is.
Says only grownups do, and anyone who has ever viewed the Northern Lights
understands how they’re a synonym for that tiny place inside your heart
that ignites like a whisper when love arrives and dies out when love leaves.
Says thunder claps when it sees a performance of true love
and even jackhammers are jealous
of how simply looking at the right person drills holes in the heart.
Says no one but someone of a ripe enough wise enough age could know this.
But I already do.
So when someone accuses you of this, I want you to tell ‘em.
Tell ‘em you love like bruises.
Tell ‘em your body is a storm chaser that knows exactly
what falling in love feels like,
because it’s been tossed around like tornado debris
from months of keeping watch for any sign of disaster.
Tell ‘em every cell of you pines for every cell of someone else,
like skin grafts eventually grow used to their new homes
whether they’re on a wrist or covering up a heart
in the very place it hurts most.
Tell ‘em.
Tell ‘em you might not be wise enough yet,
but there are no whys in love.
It just is.
Tell ‘em your heart has aged years
past what your brain has yet to figure out.
That you don’t have to be splatterpainted with wrinkles to understand
how sometimes finding your way home into another person’s body and soul
can strip you bare like oil from a canvas
and recolor you into something more alive than you ever imagined.
So you tell ‘em.
Tell em you knew what love was
long before you even left the womb.