call it something like love

I will adore you just a little more than empty tea mugs
left dirty on the table;
and I will adore you just a little more than doughnuts going stale
on the counter where the ants are parading;
and I will adore you more than all
the unseen bullets in the bodies of the soldiers bleeding in the sand;
and I will adore you more all the times the plague
was coursing through the veins of humanity as it was staring at
extinction.

And we, after all that adoration
and all those painful breaths,
and the silly things I meant to say when you just wished for death,
We
will call it love then
when everything is nothing
and I don't care about you even a little bit at all.
And then, we will call it love
when I don't say your name and when
my last breath is all

but spent like two nickels in a penny candy store,
we will let it go and adore the sweetness of the memories
just a little more than the ragged shallow empty thing
we thought was something
quite akin to something
nearly very much like everything
we thought we knew
was really just like love.