Dear Heart,

Return to the days of old,
let me once again
feel what it is to love
before every tenderness
became a question,
before every name
came with the fear of losing it.

Take me back
to when a smile was only a smile,
when I could hold someone's hand
without wondering
how long before it slips away.

I miss the foolishness of feeling,
the way I once gave myself
without measuring the distance
between affection and ruin.

Dear heart,
you have grown too careful.
You have learnt the language of leaving
so well
that even when someone stays,
you prepare for their absence.

Unlearn it.

Let me be reckless with tenderness again.
Grant me the grace
to look at someone
and not search their eyes
for an exit.

Allow me to love
without rehearsing the grief.

For once,
I do not want to survive love.

I want to live in it.