Your fingertips graze my skin
and i bleed
Passion and danger, love and war
Like all the old books and every indie song
Your hands are calloused,
Mine have scalds from the kettle

Im not beauty
Youre not grace
We're not the people poetry is written about
Well, maybe we are
But then people write poems about all sorts

We're no metaphor
We arent harmonious like symphonies of birdsong
we 're far from the gentle love of summer rain
Youre not a song
And im not a story

Just two people who fight sometimes
And kiss others
And most the time are too tired to do either
Who dont quite have each other figured out
Because we dont have ourselves understood yet

They don't tell you in the novels how you're never ready for a relationship
You never will be
We change, constantly, and you'll never get yourself enough
To let yourself know someone else too

Its more than a leap, its figuring out how you're both going to survive the fall
It's stressful and its hard work and maybe its not worth it
Or maybe it is, maybe its all going to work out
and maybe you catch yourselves sharing leftover takeaway on the kitchen counter in the late night
and you're laughing and you cant stop and its home in a sound
Its a sonnet in our ruddy cheeks
we aren't who we are, we are the moments we make

So no, we're bleeding and swollen-lipped and muttering soft, frustrated apologies together
And thats not romance, not how its supposed to be
But its determined love and tired and bruising
And thats all we're good for, really

a/n: this one grew on me, written last night before i went to sleep, lightly edited but i find i like poems to not be perfect or even very good