Whenever we come across a stranger at the bar, they always
exclaim with astonishment that I fell in love with you
“even though you have Asperger’s.”
There is no “even though.” Yesterday I reserved tickets
for your father’s funeral because we always knew
it would be a crowded event. I am still waiting for the call to come.
Some people are so beautiful in everything that they do,
but to me, hands are even more beautiful. They speak for everything
we cannot say. In high school I took a year-long course on Latin,
and every student in the class learned how to translate
their feelings with their hands.
The Latin word for sad was created with two hands around the neck,
lonely with the hands by the sides, afraid with open palms.
I still attend every single one of your AA meetings, because
it is like therapy for you, but on the mornings when the moon
bleeds white into the carpet and drenches my body with light,
all I want to do is roll over in bed
and immerse myself in you. You are addicted to something
that is not helping you, and I am always speechless, too,
when you are at a loss for words.
Listen: you are my “even though.” You are every reason
for waking, the way the moon brushes the tree branches
no matter how far they bend to get away from it.
Once, when we first met, I started crying over some silly thing,
losing a few bobby pins maybe, and you stood there,
hands by your sides, and said “I know you’re upset
but I don’t know what to do.”