Love looks
for a place to rest,
but the tragedy of a young heart
is that all it knows
is to look for four walls.
So, it mistakes a prison,
or a house,
for a home.
But survival changes
the anatomy of longing.
When you heal enough,
you realise
love was never a force.
It is a fluid, and fluid demands
only a vessel.
Sometimes you pour it
into a wide, heavy glass
where it pools into
the dark, blood-rich hue
of an old Barolo.
Other times, you slosh it
carelessly
into a champagne flute,
where it bubbles
and rises
and sparkles
against the crystal.
There are days it spills
from a waxen paper cup,
one you will crush in your fist
and toss aside.
There are nights it fills
a dented steel tumbler,
set down on a cold table
after a conversation
that stripped you bare.
You will think, each time,
that you have lost it.
But a fluid cannot be broken.
The cup is gone,
the tumbler cools,
and the wine
is swallowed by the dark…
but you are the one
who holds them.
You are the one
who defines the taste.
