on falling in love

"be careful of the ice, emily," he says and he watches my step, for fear i might fall.

"it's my job to worry about you," he says when i try to smooth the wrinkles in his face.

me staring at his profile in the dark when the children are asleep and something has happened to remind him of the years when i wasn't eating, the years when love felt skinny between us.

and he doesn't normally talk but tonight, words have found him and i'm listening to him wonder why? why did i do that to myself? to us? to me?

and i see the lines in his face, etched. i see the nights in which i never came to bed. i see the days i refused to eat, colored grey beneath his eyes and the afternoon i tried to drive us into traffic in the grooves in his forehead.

i can't tell him i'm sorry enough, and i ask him what does he love about me? how can he love me, i wonder, after all of that? and he turns to me and the moon puddles his eyes.

"i don't love parts of you. i love all of you. so i can't tell you what i love about you because i just love you--the good and the bad. and that will never change."

and he keeps me from slipping but i'm falling, every day, for a man who would die just so i might live.

(shared with jen and laura)