routine love.

My day starts at 5 am, an hour before your alarm clock blares,
stirring you from whatever soft dreamland you found yourself in—
by the time I’m showered, dressed, and awake, it’s 5:25 am.
I fix you breakfast first, your favourite, muesli with fruit.
It’s been soaking in milk overnight in the refrigerator, just how
you like it—I slice up a banana, quarter strawberries, and grab
a handful of blueberries and do my best to aesthetically plate them,
and top it off with a drizzle of honey. The clock reads 5:32 am.
You like starting off your day with a heaping dose of good news,
I scour the internet for any article—I come across an article about
how solar energy generated one terawatt of energy (a milestone),
another article about how one community in Hawaii got together
to shred cardboard together to recycle, and prevent it from going to
landfill. I settle on the article about a group of California elementary
students launching a helpline, offering advice, kind words, pep talks
from kindergarteners, and the ability to hear kids laughing with delight.
I send the article to your phone. The clock reads 5:40 am.
At 5:52 am, I’ll start on your coffee—you like it warm, brewed for
four and a half minutes, with a touch of almond milk. In the mean
time, I read poetry, screenshotting the poems I know you’d love.
At 6:01 am, I’m on your side of the bed, bartering your sleepy kisses
for a warm cup of coffee—it’s for this precise moment I awake an hour
earlier than I need to. How sweet it is, our love perfected to the point of
a morning routine.