One night I fell asleep smiling and woke up in love.
Not with the boy who didn’t love me back,
Or the stranger who always reads on the bus.
Not even with that fictional character from that book that made me cry.
I fell in love with my mother,
Tying her head in a scarf hoping it will take the headache away.
I fell in love with my grandma,
Watering her plants every day,
Singing to her sewing machine, the one she gave me years later,
And cursing the birds that pick her tree fruits bloody.
I fell in love with my sister,
Who made me m&ms cupcakes years ago and never made them again.
I fell in love with the women on the bus, the one who gave me her seat
When I had my leg cast on,
And the one who held on to me when the bus was crowded, keeping me steady.
I fell in love with my neighbor, the one my mother said was a shame didn’t marry,
The one who taught me how to knit in my first year of high school,
The thread going in and out forming the scarf I’ll show to everyone I’ll ever love.
I fell in love with all the women around me,
With the scarf that prevents pain,
The sewing machine that knows hundreds of songs by heart,
The cupcakes I ate while studying,
The other scarf I made that looked like the tapestry of my own life,
With holes and escaping threads, like the days where it was hard to even get up in the morning,
The stained chair and stained cast that stood witnesses of pure kindness,
And the sweaty hands holding on to mine.
And even years later, when someone asks me about joy,
The faces of these women are the first that come to mind.
I am them, and they are me.
