Sometimes I think,
“we’re just souls”.
Souls that are wrapped up
in fragile, easily bruised skin.

I found beauty in your bruised skin,
in your flaws,
in your past.

Falling in love with someone is so deep.
You don’t just fall in love with the person himself,
it’s much more intense than that.
You start to fall in love with his culture;
his likes of the noise a metal bat makes when it comes in contact
with the stitching of red and white
and his dislikes of people who lack respect.
His hard upbringing, what tore apart his confidence.
His broken home he was raised in.
As you dig into his childhood,
unwrapping each layer carefully,
the explorations in Ireland,
to the falling out of his family.
You take cautious time,
making sure you don't reopen old scars.
How he learned from the mistakes
of those around him,
how it raised him to become a man.
To become a “man,”
that forces himself to hold back
the weakness of forming floods
in his eyes with quivering lips.
The way he formulates his sentences.
How he vents on and on about his frustrations,
one run-on sentence after another.
How he tries to talk over you,
talking louder, to be the one heard.
His body language.
How he scratches the backside of his neck,
moving away strands of blond hair,
and ruffs up the collar of his shirt
to show uncertainty,
to display his discomfort and nerves.
The nervous ticks,
pulling at his clothes,
or scrunching his nose.
The unconscious biting of his callouses,
propping one hand up by the other
only to have his teeth meet his hand
to rip off hard skin.
Everything he has been through,
what has hurt him in the past.
His fears of not being good enough,
because of that pain.
His present and his future;
his future with you.

He becomes a part of you.
You don’t even notice,
but then you see it.

His brokenness somehow completed me,
making me whole.
It made me, my better self.

Falling in love with someone,
means falling in love with their bruises,
healing their scars.
Only to realize,
he was healing your bruised skin, too.