The Way I Lean Toward Love | The Art of Poetry | Page 1

I do not fall in love—
I lean into it.
Like a tree bending toward the sun
that sometimes burns me.
Love, to me,
is not a firework.
It’s a moth-eaten quilt,
threadbare in places,
but still warm where it matters.
I have loved
like someone watering plastic flowers—
because it felt real
and no one else would.
I have waited at doors
that never opened,
carved names into the welcome mat
just so I could pretend
someone might stay.
I have memorized the way rooms breathe
when someone new walks in,
learned to disappear in the seams
so they would have space to exist.
Still,
I write poems like postcards—
wishing you were here
even if I don’t know who “you” is.
Maybe love is just the shape
my shadow makes
when I reach out in the dark
and nobody reaches back.
Still,
I set the table.
I pour the tea.
I leave the light on
as if someone is coming.
Because I love
like it’s a verb
even when there’s no one to act upon.
And that’s the thing—
I never needed a mirror
just someone to look at me
like I wasn’t a ghost
haunting my own ribs.
I love
like holding the umbrella
in a storm I was told to ignore.
I love
like hand-me-down hope
stitched with my mother’s sighs.
I love
like a church that stayed open
after the congregation left.
And maybe—
just maybe—
one day someone will sit
at the edge of my loneliness
and call it a home.
Someone who won’t ask me
to shrink softer,
or dim my light
for comfort.
Someone who will see
the cracks
and call them
architecture.
I love like it’s a long hallway
that never ends,
but I leave all the doors open,
just in case.
I love with bent forks
and chipped plates,
like every dinner might still be enough
even if nothing matches.
I love with silence,
the kind that follows lullabies,
where breath is prayer
and staying is sacred.
I’ve loved from the cracks in linoleum,
the whispers in an empty bed,
the yellowing notes in margins
of books left behind.
And I love—
I love—
like a coat that never quite fits,
but still keeps someone warm.
Until then—
I write.
I lean.
I love.
Anyway.

Linoleum is a type of flooring made from natural materials like linseed oil, wood flour, and cork dust, often on a backing of jute or canvas

#The Way I Lean Toward Love