consubstantial

You were not standing at the door

with a sign.

There was no sign.

There was Tuesday,

and the way you laughed

at something I said

that wasn’t even meant to be funny,

just true,

and you caught it anyway —the truth inside the throwaway —

and I thought:

oh… that’s my person.

The movies lied about the lightning.

There is no lightning.

There is a slow accumulation

like sediment,

like the way a river doesn’t ask permission

to change the shape of what it loves.

The fireworks…

They were always a lie.

We were friends first —which is to say

we were everything first,

and the rest was just

admitting it.

I am not easy.

You know this.

I over-explain the things I’m certain of

and go completely silent

about the things that matter.

I leave dirty dishes in the sink.

I rewatch the same three shows

like they owe me something.

I have opinions about things

that I will share whether asked or not.

You are also not easy.

We are not compatible

the way a lock and key are compatible,

the way a puzzle is compatible with itself.

We are compatible

the way weather is compatible with staying inside,

the way a good sentence is compatible with silence —

adjacent.

necessary.

not quite matching… but holding.

Soulmate is a word that sounds like arrival,

like somewhere you get to

and set down your baggage

and never have to explain

why you brought so much with you.

But I think it is more like

a conversation that started somewhere ordinary —

a parking lot,

a breakroom,

a mutual friend’s Facebook post —

and simply

never ended.

I’ve watched people search

the way you search for your keys

when they’re already in your hand —

looking past the obvious,

looking past the person

who already knows

how you take your coffee,

who already laughs

before the punchline,

because they’ve been listening

since before you started talking.

Friendship is the soil.

This is what they don’t say

on the greeting cards,

which are too busy

with sunsets and serifed fonts

to mention the actual miracle,

which is:

someone chose

to keep showing up

when they didn’t have to,

when there was nothing romantic on the table,

when it was just

two people being honest

in a way that felt almost dangerous —

and then, later,

one of them turned around

and the light was different

or the same

and something had grown.

We rarely have the typical arguments…

We argue about so little,

Almost exclusively about what

(motioning with both hands to the idea of you and me)

This should look like.

We have fundamentally different ideas

about seemingly inconsequential things…

There are things I find funny

that you will never find funny.

There are silences between us

that have names now,

that have learned to sit down

without being asked.

Organic doesn’t mean effortless.

Organic means

the effort doesn’t feel

like something borrowed.

The effort feels like

breathing,

which is also effort, technically,

but you don’t complain about it.

You don’t even notice

until someone points it out

and then you can’t stop noticing.

So I’m pointing it out:

The soul, if it has a mate,

does not recognize it

the way you recognize a face.

It recognizes it

the way we recognize a song we know by heart

when it comes on the radio —

suddenly, and completely,

already in the middle of it,

with no memory of the silence

before it started playing.

You were not the person

I was looking for.

You were the person

I was already bonded to

when I stopped looking.

And everything

since then

has felt like something

I should have a better word for

Than lucky…

But lucky is the one I’ve got.

And you’re the one I’ve got.

And the dirty dishes are still sitting there.

And you still put them in the dishwasher.

And we both know

We’ll always be here.