love poem

When you say my name

it makes me want to cry.

The way you hold it in your mouth

so gentle, so careful.

You love me and I hear it

in the way you whisper my name,

the way it falls off your tongue.

I've never heard my name

until now.

I have never recognized the soft syllables and the

way it rolls and ends

almost in a question.

It is not the harsh vowels of my youth

or the drawn out gaudiness of my teens.

My name doesn't sound like the short,

pressed staccato of the classroom

or the muted otherness of its

foreign sister.

When you say my name

it makes me want to cry.

It makes me want to write poems

and letters

and songs to you.

You hold my name with such reverence,

with such awe, with such care as if

it might break if you aren't careful.

So you are.

You say my name and I recognize

your voice.

Your tenor, your depth, and the beauty

with which you speak.

My name has been so broken, so used,

so common I no longer care.

But you make me want to.

When you say my name,

I want to cry

because never have I felt so precious,

so protected,

so loved.

I don't feel tainted

or bruised

or broken.

I feel fragile

and sensitive

and new

and wanting.

When you say my name

I want to cry

because you say it and I know

how much someone can

love me.