don’t need to hear it
to know it
so i say it
for him. i love you
baby
and you love me
too.
no
he says
no i don’t
i actually
hate you.
tonight
i don’t need to hear it
but he might
so i say it
for both of us
again.
it glides
over the blue fleece
valley between
his twilit cliff
and my watchful shore
he says
faster
as we climb
our bikes towards sunset
he says
the Giant Ogliboy
is an anagram
of biology
he says
give me
a noun or a verb
i say hammer
he says
it’s both
but closes his voice
tight
against affection’s
escape.
at guard, a lock
in the shape of
his neck
but tonight
he forgets to latch
the gate
between worlds
and drifting off
he says
what i don’t need
to hear
to know is true
he says
something
when i say
i love you
he says
you too.
Thanks to Walter Moers for A Wild Ride through the Night, the anagram scientist giants, and the quest that carries us here.
Image: Hermel Alejandre, “Mother and Child”
Shannon E. Williams 
These days can be fraught but of course he does.
This needs to be my mantra (of course he does of course he does)
It’s important to remember.
You are helping him love himself. I always feel like that’s the mirror. Love reflecting love. No more courageous or important act.
I hope so. It would be nice to help him learn to turn that love a bit outside himself, too. That seems like an equally important act — especially when there is so much on self expression, self image, self self self. To notice and attend to what (and who) is not immediately useful or pleasurable is a difficult habit to cultivate.