Hope Baxter

FOR YOU

These words I write, 

I write for you 

and all that you do. 

I know I’ve written for many before, 

but this time

is like no other.

I love you when the sun sets,

I love you when the sun rises, 

I love you when the moon is full, 

I love you when the moon is incomplete. 

My love for you 

it is real, 

it is honest, 

it is healthy. 

I’m not under a spell, 

compelled to choose you, 

to accept pain as a gift, 

to see abandonment as punishment;

You don’t control me

or manipulate, 

So I know,

More than I have ever known,

This time it is real, 

So you see these words,

I have ebbed into circulation,

go beyond all screens

Because it is stamped on my skin, 

illuminated in my eyes, 

every time I turn to you, 

It is not moon’s or stars or sunsets,

it is not any metaphor

or any word I have ever used before, 

It is You, 

it is only you, 

I see when I turn to you, 

You are all I see 

because when I look at you 

I don’ t need any fantasy…