I am worthy of a love this great

SOMETHING [Transcribed from The Tavis Smiley Show on PRI]

You are the only Bible I may ever read
And I am the only Psalm you may ever need
Showed up in my life like the perfect Scripture
And if what I believe I become
Then we are something holy
Something exceptional
How dare we waste this magic manifested chemistry love-mess
Your daffodil lips kissed this poem into my fingertips
You are something to praise God about
Something liquid and ever racing
Bright yellow on a rainy day
The tighter I squeeze the more you slip away
So I hug with hesitance
Squeeze me if you want to stay
Squeeze me if you know that they
The naysayers would condemn the way I love you
Pressed on flesh
How better to honor the Artist than to cherish His work
Memorized you the second time
I love you like that

With all of me
Cyclical like that
Meaning
I will always get back to loving you
Will always feed you first
And will always write you poems in secret
Because I’ve never liked to keep them anyway
Lover you are deserving
And I’ve saved the soft of me for you
It’s okay to want this the way you do
Climb under my skin if need be
There is not a place in me you cannot inhabit
Not a patch of me you cannot touch
Not a thought in me you cannot chase
Not a dream in me you cannot know
I love you like that

Hospice-volunteer and rape victim turned inmate workshop teacher
See if you step out of your experiences long enough you can see the bigger picture
We are something God made
For a time such as this
For a moment such as this
So worry not
Step into the glory
See this for what it is not what it is not
Stories are what we tell each other after
I only want to tell the truth
I love you in a place where there is not noise
Only music and slow motion
Only laughter and dances I know
Only stories worth retelling
I love you
And that language may be too foreign for you
It may sound like words you should know but do not
But they say if you live in a place long enough the language becomes your own
So I’m asking you to say it with me
I am worthy of a love this great

-Natalie Patterson