the strangest land love has led me to

happy birthday, love.

i take you away to paris
and become royalty in my home turf,
cause when all is said and done
paris is for lovers,
the moneymakers come and go,
the trendsetters and cogs of power
and the lovers will remain,
hand in hand and cozy as barnacles
under the flowered chestnut trees
and whispers of old stone,
favourite children of her slipstream of dreams.

and you showed me this. 

you’ve been one of my better bad ideas,
sitting on my path to constantly ask
how far
are you willing 
to stretch your understanding,
to suspend judgement
to sit in the tension

to change your mind

for love,
for real,

to stare something in the face for so long
it becomes part of me,
without will, simply with time

to let the waters polish this jagged cliffside
of snap decisions to run,
of sharp lines in my mind
you’ve casually seeded with flowered weeds, muddied back into
a more nuanced dialogue with the outside,
the other,
i watch your unfolding
like a season unfurls at its own pace,
brings out bloom then bud then fruit
in the secret rhythm of the world
and let it be,
let it be.

you may be the strangest land
love has led me to yet,

and i am blessed to rest here,
in a wild corner of your heart 
where swallows nest in the grapevine.