Wedding Vows
This poem is an adaptation of my wedding vows
As the time together has grown
And it became clear that I wanted to live the rest of my life with you,
I had to think about what marriage means to me.
And to me, marriage is
The formalization of promises.
Promises we have been quietly making
To each other
And to ourselves.
And so,
I would like to formalize my promises to you.
I promise to be a good domestic partner.
I promise to clean the dishes
And vacuum the floor
And iron our clothes for special occasions.
I promise to shoulder more responsibilities
When times are tough for you.
I promise to cook you a huge dinner and bake you a cake on all of your birthdays,
Or at least until
The day finally comes where we cannot eat sugar.
I promise to enjoy the peaceful tranquility we share
When we are alone
Just
Enjoying each other’s presence.
I promise to stand by your side
And share your pains
The way you stood by me at my worst,
The way you did
When tragedy befell.
I promise to share your pain
The way you did
When I couldn’t get out of bed
When you held my hand
When you helped me accept that
The pain I feel will be a new normal but that I
Can grow to live with the pain
Without it
Consuming me
Tragedy will necessarily befall us.
The death of loved ones,
Our failing health,
And eventually,
The specter of our own death.
But I promise
That you will not be alone when you must confront them.
I promise that
When the end finally comes for us,
We will be able to look back at our lives together
And not regret
A moment
We shared.
I promise to remember this moment.
I promise to remember
The look on your sparkling eyes,
The beauty of your lips when you smile,
The way your voice feels like a song.
I promise to remember this moment,
And
When my memory begins to fail,
I promise that the echoes of today
Will reverberate throughout my entire life.
But most of all I promise to love you for forever
To love you the way I have for all the time
We have been together.
I love You!
I can’t wait to share the rest of my life with You!
