Vows

Could I refuse you
anything at all?
Are there sacrifices
too great to make,
promises too impossible
to keep while holding on to
the very part of you
that is home for me?
I cannot refuse to try,
will not watch your lovely face
fade from the picture I hold
so dear in my mind, its fragile corners
bent and tattered, worn from
believing that you and I are
more than a photograph
resting between pages in an empty book.
This is the nature of love:
stepping into the dark,
understanding the lack of understanding,
realizing there are a million other
places out there in the world,
but none where I would rather be.
***