Love Me Like You Mean It by Leslea Newman
Love me like you mean it
like it was the very first time
that night last May
with your neighbor’s TV blaring downstairs
and your dog whimpering and twitching
in her sleep
and you trembling so hard your bones
rattled against each other
and the bed squeaking on its four unsteady legs
I tell you it was like a regular symphony orchestra
in that small room
and I was making so much noise myself
it’s a wonder I heard any of it.
Love me like you mean it
like it was the very last time
not the next to last time
or the time before that
but the this-is-it-never-again-
not-even-one-more-time time
because some day it will be
though we probably won’t know it just then
since that’s the way these things usually happen —
one of us will die
or go away
or decide she needs something else
someplace else
So love me like you mean it
like this is the only time
I’ll ever have to give myself
to you completely open
taking you in as far as you want to go
and then farther still
for only you can touch those places
deep inside me
where I wrote your name
a thousand years ago
in a language I had never heard
before you came home
to speak it
