I promise.

I promise I will love you forever.
and forever.
and forever.

I promise I will fight unfair,
tooth and claw, bear the brutality of it,
my own feelings, and rage, dare to get into it with you,
to know, to know beyond all
the unthinkable

declare you as my friend,
my love, my honest companion.

I promise I will be innocent. That I will come
that completely open to our encounters with each
other. That I will let you in. That I will let love in.

I promise I will be strong when I don't know
how to be
that I will grow when I don't know how
to rise up
that I will bend and resist in equal measure
along my learning path.

I promise I will be true.
To whatever truth I may not always be certain in
knowing it may not be the ultimate truth,
but that, in each moment,
I will try and seize the honesty of it,
for what I think it is
or can be
or could become.

I promise to be beautiful for as long as I live.

I promise to hold you in the light, in my
heart, with forgiveness, with my eyes set
on your highest and your deepest and your-
-our-my-learning, how do we get there?
curving.

I promise to be the best friend of your life
and the one that calls you out
to duke it out
when it feels all wrong
until it feels all right again.

I promise
I will love you with my Whole Heart
and not its half,
not its safe half
or its dangerous half,
My Whole Heart.

I promise you that
Love will take us there.