Abecedarian Written Under the Influence of Anniversary

At the beginning there was a man in the doorway
blue shirt, and a grin —
curls that verged on Bob Ross.
Do you know a different way to meet new people?
Each of us standing on the threshold,
feet moving towards each other, strangers then.
Good thing I know now that he loves me, cannot view this moment
     without that filter,
his body already known, the ache of it.
In that moment I was terrified —
Jacob Jans, I heard him say. Later a friend told me You
know that’s the name of a terrible superhero, right?
Let us pretend that we can chose love based on names, on
     predetermined conditions,
maybe I should have waited for someone that clicked the boxes
     Canadian and Christian.
No, not even in jest.
One friend chose a husband because he was less intelligent than her.
     They are still together,
probably. We should
quit pretending we know what love looks like till we find it —
reedy and tough — the scariest experience I’ve ever had,
seriously, was to step into marriage, planting a ginkgo
tree on a hillside full of evergreen, and pledging myself to an
unknown future, with a known quantity. Love isn’t
Valentines’ roses, and mood lighting. There’s no destination with
     commitment.
x doesn’t mark the spot where you finish, or even the spot where you
     start.
y is a known variable, but nothing else is, even in the
zzzzzzzz of sleep.