i didn't know

I didn't know,
as I wake smiling from a dream
in which a one-time lover long since a loved-one returns,
a dream which failed to thrive in life -
still dancing in the never-was of night.
Or in the waking dream in which my daughter,
for reasons we'll never know,
never became a mother
never suffered heartbreak
never made her brother laugh
never had her first breath
was one of my first lost loves.

I didn't know,
holding so tightly to love that it squeezed out of my fingers,
or holding so loosely that it wandered away.
Learning that love is a flighty thing. Not I, but love.
That the many things we label as love are anything but.
Learning that unless it birthed you or you birthed it,
Love is not to be trusted.

I didn't know
that I would have to worry about the same for you.
That a term of endearment would be replaced
with a phrase of longevity.
That the sandpaper of familiarity
would dull the shine of our
ever-young intimacy.
That what had always been might not always be.