I have been called unromantic because
I do not believe it was our destiny to be together
that you could love only me
and I only you.
 
So tell me my love
is it unromantic to think
that there is more to love than chemisty and fate
that the act of loving is itself integral to love?
 
Is it unromantic to think
my grandmother was not entirely right
that every pot does not have a cover
but rather there are thousands of matched sets
that it takes many meals cooked together
to form the indelible union of cover and pot?
 
Unromantic to think that long ago when I met you
I was incapable of truly loving
that it was your love which allowed me
to love myself and then you as well
or to say that if I lost your love
I would love another
not because our love wasn't real
but rather because of the lessons you have taught me?
 
Am I unromantic if I tell you love is more than a feeling
more than something we have no power over
that we choose to love each other every day
when we chose to share not only our tragedies and our triumphs
but also the mundane experiences that form the fabric of our lives?
 
Unromantic to know that when your grandmother died
it was my choice to stand by your side and hold you up
just as two years later you chose to stand by mine
or when you lost a child neither of us had wanted
but nevertheless came to love
we chose to suffer together not apart
that when you stood up and were sworn into the bar
I sat and watched and felt as though it were me
that almost all of our major wins at the track
have been made together just as our losing streaks
have been caused by a breakdown
in both our decision making processes
that when I cried at our wedding
maybe it was because I knew I had barely begun to love you?
 
I must be unromantic because I believe
that all those days of all those years together
are what makes our love
as much as the chemistry between us
or the fate that brought us together when it did.
I am the cynic who believes there can be no truer love
than loving someone who loves you
and loving you is driving you to work
and watching you hurry inside even though you are early
and loving me is knowing I pick you up late
because that is part of who I am.
 
Our love is not just the first night we came together.
Our love is all those nights we lie beside one another.
Our love is paying the rent.
Our love is signing birthday cards and never mailing them.
Our love is sending each other e-mails while we sit in the same room.
Our love is writing down the other's name when we say it on the phone.
Our love is taking in the newspaper and taking out the garbage.
  
Tell me I am a cynic for thinking that love is more than fate
that the sparks that light the flames of passion
are set off all the time but keeping a fire lit
is a daily process and not an act of fate.
 
Call me unromantic because in my heart I believe
I was not destined to love you but merely to love.
I must be unromantic to believe that
everyday I live I choose to love you
and that you choose to love me
and that is what makes our love so real.
 
I am so unromantic that
I believe love is not something you will find in a poem or a flower
I believe love is something you live
I believe I love you
I believe I love you more everyday from having loved you another day
I believe any love I see in a poem or a flower is nothing 
but a reflection of the love you found inside me.
 
I believe all that.
 
     This I know.
     I could fall in love every other day
     yet every day
     I love by living my love with you.
  
You tell people you looked at me once and knew you loved me.
I tell them that when I looked at you I did not know what love was.
  
     I am the unromantic who knows
     ours is a true romance.

-d








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