I Have Come to Love You

I have come to love you with all my flaws
and insecurities, with my history of making
irreparable mistakes and trying to amend
what cannot be mended, but I have come
anyway, hoping you will accept my tattered
life, bruised on the rocks of overcommitment
and broken promises and trying to make do
when "make do" is offensive to the living
and the dead too

I have come to love you with an offering
whole, burnt, full of wide-eyed daring
and the comprehension of what
the last conversation between us could
possibly mean if we were not
afraid of our own hearts, or why
that last hours-long car ride felt so full
of moments past, crowding into the seats
behind us since there is no middle front seat
in cars anymore--we are old now
and like missing middle front seats
or six-year-old grins punctuated with
missing teeth, we too have missing
things that may or may not return
but the missing of them is acute now
and still

I have come to love you

DRAFT/UNFINISHED POEM
© Valerie Bridgeman
January 13, 2013