Ode to 40

Being 40 is like being in love with your best friend.

She’s known you your whole life.

She knows just what to say, what to do and when not to.

She’s the best cook. All your favorite dishes are her favorite dishes and she always washes them after.

She can giggle like a school girl with you one minute and the next, you’re up a 20-foot tree harvesting whatever needs to be harvested. Including grief, pain, jealousy, insecurity. All the fruits of ours were once hers. Or his.

And by the way he doesn’t scoff

When I use some over the top hyperbole

Because he knows I’m a poet

And prone to dramatic overtones

I can tell this love is forever

Like when she doesn’t mind

If I bring up that touchy subject

We thought we were done with

Or rolls her eyes at my forgetfulness

My structure, my form, my body

She finds perfect in the mirror

Next to him

And how she’s perfectly gentle and kind and determined and infinitely patient

With me

He never loses his temper

But you’ll always know exactly how he feels

Because he lets you in on the fact that all your secrets are his secrets too

And he lets you be

When you need some space

And she lets you be your goofiest self

Your teenage angst ridden super geekiest self

Revealing all your best deal breakers

To the point where it makes you wonder

About each other

And he lets you

He lets you ask questions

He lets you be wrong

And never makes you blush

Except when he wants to

When you are in love

With your best friend

You can’t hide anymore

Because I see you

I know that you are real

That you exist and that you are

The most important thing in my

Life not because I love you

But because you are love