Almost

I used to almost-fall-in-love all the time.
I would take some small gesture,
some breathtaking sidelong look,
some small perfect curve,
and build around it a pixie, a faun,
a perfect creature I could love.

But now I have more practice with love’s rise and fall,
and Gaia’s dopamine-fueled tricks
do not work so well on me.
And so I hardly ever almost-fall-in-love anymore.
I see what my younger self did not.
Complexities. Qualities that need work to deal with.
Figments of commitment.

I still fall in love, but that’s rare and hard
and magic and fleeting and
not at all the same thing as
almost-falling-in-love.