The air smelled like the elderly and death as I walked in with you and your brother.
I’d been meeting your mom for the first time-
A sweet woman with a terminal diagnosis who valued her Pepsi and peanut butter ice cream,
You cut her food up for her because she was too weak to do it herself.
I wanted to sob into your chest.
And tell you I love you for the first time right there.
I knew a man who claimed his father had a life or death emergency but then went home to get plastered-
He truly believed that I was the villain when I left him for it,
I guess “basic compassion” was not something he was capable of replicating.
But you understand principles and we understand each other,
So marrying you will be the greatest decision I ever make.
The air smelled like elderly and death;
A scent that made it hard to breathe as I’d sat down in the chair beside your mother’s bed,
Watching you carefully cut her food into pieces small enough for her tired hands.
I’d spent all these months trying to talk myself out of loving you just for you to cement it with a single action anyways.
