because 'I love you' isn't good enough

It isn't long enough,

or short enough,

or valid enough.

3 words

8 letters

enough to kick him in the groin

and catch her off guard

and girls have a tendency to close their eyes at boys who love them

until those boys realize it was petty love.

It was half-love.

It wasn't love.

Because 'I love you' isn't enough to sum up my feelings:

You have me putting flour in my hair

and watering my plants with juice

and you have me waking up one minute before the alarm goes off,

and your palms get sweaty

but I love you most with hat hair.

You pulled my analogies out

and made room on your heart and your couch,

and it lasts longer than 3 words and 8 letters.

You are more than 3 words and 8 letters.

Because 'I love you' isn't good enough,

I love physics.

I love putting a number on how far our lips are,

tagging a velocity on how fast you blink,

how high your laugh lines reach your eyes,

how many times you misspell her name.

I love chemistry

because I don't need any other reasons to love chemistry.

I love English.

I love the paper-mache poems you write,

reorganizing sentences so they turn me inside out,

leaving flowers in the form of new words

from the boy who always wanted to speak his mind

but got locked behind opinions

until his got too big 

for a cage.

I love you because we're always barefoot

with our journey across the eastern sea board

and Boston's in your eyes

but New York is on your shoulders

and I love you like the library in Manhattan,

where I used to pretend I was a college student,

and I made it my home before I made you my home.

I go home to you.

I wake up to you.

3 words and 8 letters can't speak my mind,

and 'I love you' isn't good enough,

but you never needed an explanation.