This is not just a love poem,
it is a philia poem,
for my father’s brother’s oldest son,
separated by a thousand miles
and 18 trips around the sun.
older than me by exactly 37 days,
we’re both growing into adulthood
and both graduating this May.
Essentially, this philia has been denied
throughout his childhood and mine,
because in 18 years we’ve met 5 times,
twice when we were too young to remember,
once a few years ago at his house in Indiana,
and twice last year, in August and December.
No one ever talks about “cousinly love,”
but it really sucks to know that
all this time there's been someone,
someone one in the same as you
literally made from my line of flesh and blood
that I never even knew.

And yes, your feelings of storge shift between
Starbucks and the Miami Dolphins
(and you’re wrong, since the Patriots beat them 35-14),
but our agápe lies in the same place,
a promise of heaven passed down from our fathers
and the acknowledgement of a God transcending time and space.
We both know eros in the bodies of women,
and I was surprised you were fine
with this secret that came out at 2 am.

Grandma went to bed at midnight,
and we filled the gap between 12:01 and 4:23
rearranging every plant and photograph in sight,
silence swelling with our hopes and fears,
and a small “fuck you” (which we both knew not to say in front of the rest of the family)
for separating us for 18 years.
And we woke up in the living room the next day,
(you got the couch and I ended up on the floor),
I swear I heard you pray
“God, please let us stay like this forever”
because for once in your life you met
someone with your ambition to endeavor
into revolution and social change, but who is clinging
tightly to the melodies and rhythms
that our ancestors have been loudly singing.
Maybe they knew we’d be too strong a force--
“engineerboy and dreamergirl,” a dynamic duo--
they were right, because we once we learned that we can change course,
in the distance, a banner unfurled
through branches of our family tree
to read “Ben and Emily take the world.”