Aim: What is Love to a teenage girl?

I like to write poems 

bejeweled with heartbreak philosophy 

In which i equate the illusion of love to 

Religious salvation.

(Something real for many, yet not quite tangible)

I can tiptoe at the brink of hell,

in all my romantic sins and unlawful kisses.

Yet all I hear is the masses as they cry: 

Repent!

In the name of love!

You, the prophet, 

I guess that makes me the disciple

How do I put this into words?

Let’s say love is forgiving. 

But forgiveness is not gentle  

how you are gentle

You are delicate with your handpicked sentences

like lowbush blueberries found along Maine’s Route 1 

“How do I put this into words?” you say.

You speak to me through chicken-scratch to-do lists 

on pink bordered post-its

while your mom pesters you to cross things off.

You are comforted by the pearls of my sweat

sewn into your bedsheets

And as you sleep, my scent emigrates from your pillows 

to your nostrils.

I have yet to determine if it's my shampoo or my deodorant that you adore.

I have yet to determine why our bodies need each other, what colossal attraction

Consumes us.

Not attraction in a lustful way, (though I will confess to that),

But attraction in the pulsing way- how do I put it into words?

The way that magnets attract.

I can only wonder

What is so enchanting about my waist?

What draws you to the hidden parts of me-

Those that retract at others touch?

An iphone passcode that I had forgotten some time ago-

I will unlock at your fingerprints easily.

I’d like to think I do the same for you.

You let me touch your cheek. 

So I’ll trace the constellations in your freckles

The ones that echo the Vermont sky.

I recall staying there, in Ripton

How you told me where to find the key (hung on the side of a teetering fence).

I recall your polished wooden house,

Furnished occasionally with minimalist pieces (and the striking absence of a kitchen table)

I recall wearing your UGG slippers to keep me warm 

During the April snowfall. 

It was crisp and cold,

Yet I can't help but see the beauty of 

frosted flowers

Juxtaposing portraits- the murals that wash the 

inside of my skin.

How do I put us into words?

I know my heart swells tsunamis,

Rapidly rising and crashing down.

My thoughts follow a turbulent path

Phenomena unexplained by science,

The physicist’s nightmare

I fail to quantify my feelings. ​​

Thankfully, 

Love is a forgiving word.