I goes by Maddy

My parents always tell me
to never fall in love with someone else
who has baggage.

The problem with that is it disproves this fact:
you have been places and you
are going places, separately from and with me.

I want to lie down in bed with you
and have you lay out all of your suitcases.
I want you to show me the dress you
wore when you were seven and that neighborhood
girl, Sara, kissed you on the nose.
I want you to show me the pair of shoes
you wore when we first met, with your
shoe laces so dirty from walking
around this city and finding pieces
of yourself in the alleyways.

Please lay out that gown you wore
those three days when you were in the hospital
with scars on your skin because
it was easier to hate yourself than to love.
Please let me hold that bracelet
you threw into the Ocean from the first
boy that broke your heart and ended up
kissing another girl that same night
and taking her home, fucking her
so hard that the Milky Way wasn’t
a good enough metaphor
to articulate how he felt coming
home.

I will dress you up in my
eighteen year old skin where B.
and I sat instead of danced during
prom, crying over certain things
that we could not keep inside for
much longer. I will let you wear
that sweater I wore the first night
I kissed you underneath a street lamp,
as the snow was falling into the light,
I was falling into you, wholeheartedly.
I will let you wear that shirt you slipped
over your self after that first night we spent
together, in bed, learning how to love someone
properly, in a more physical sense than ever before.

And then I want to pack all of these bags
and stuff them back into our lungs,
so that our histories will always leak out of
our breath. We will not forget
how heavy we felt once and how light we feel now,
in comparison. I want to know your history, simply,
even the darkest corners, so maybe me being there
will make them lighter and make both of us
appreciate the dim light of the Moon
because it was there, even if we did not always
notice it.