love me like fresh everything. but also like the forgotten shea butter in the back of the drawer, years old, its oils rancid. if you can love me like that, the rest will be easy. love me like the forgotten. love me like the rediscovered, where everything you've lost becomes found again.

love me like first kisses, all unknowing and unfamiliar but full of wanting. love me like last kisses, the holding of faces, the teary goodbyes.  the last goodbye, how do i show you what a lifetime of love is in one last kiss? the one that i hope isn't in a hospital but somewhere cozy with a fire and our dogs laying at our feet.

love me like you know how i will die. love me like that.

like every morning you've ever reached across the bed to kiss the back of my neck. like the dogs and how they jump and squeal and bring us their most prized possesions when we come home. love me like someone who has come back after a long journey. like a homecoming after a harrowing disaster. like a near car accident, a close call. love me like i'm something you could possibly lose.

love me like the ninjas love their own stealth but make it loud.  make it like the garbage trucks on an early friday morning clanging the bins against their vehicle. make it loud like getting stuck in  front of the speakers at a show, like you wished you brought ear plugs. love me like the crying baby on a plane whose lungs are on the verge of giving out, all the wailing and uncontrollable emotion.  she wants what she wants. she needs and she needs and her parents can't stop apologizing.

love me like that. all unraveled and disheveled emotion, all last push for the finish line of the longest marathon, like the last exhausting step up the mountain, the last stroke of your weary arms hauling you ashore where you can finally rest.

love me like that.