I love you not from need, but want.
I can with neither motion, nor emotion explain, for I know not where
This seed was grown, simply that you have planted it.

I love you as all strange things are to be loved:
Quietly admired while standing in time, which passes by,
Unyielding to those who wish to capture it;

As adamantly as a salmon working upstream;
As defiant as a child who refuses to finish his carrots,
And always says his prayers.

I love you so closely,
That when you have mind to speak, it is my lips that part,
And when you cry, my lungs that ache.

It is my fist, which clenches when wrongs are done you,
When life seems hard to bear, my shoulders that carry your burdens,
And when you drift asleep, my eyes that close.

I love you well enough that boredom cannot interfere.
Your antics and your eccentricities will never wear thin my nerves,
So long as they still bring a smile to your face.

I love you with a hold like that of an oak’s root.
Roots, which dig deeper every day, and grow not into a rose, nor carnation,
but into a forget-me-not; I trust you will do just that.