An Ode to Sweatpants

This is a love story a lifetime coming.
I have known you, intimately;
but until we were quarantined,
I didn’t realize the possibilities
of our communion.
There is no post-pandemic
just as there is no pre-pandemic
when every day has been an unpaid sick day
under suppressive and oppressive regimes.
From this understanding comes another,
equally profound:
we deserve comfort.
No one is entitled to my legs.
Slacks are straightjackets for the colonized ass,
and my colonized ass is over it.
Sweatpants, you are everything.
You love me with space, with softness,
with the steadiness of a tumble dry cycle
beating late into the night.
You hold the love handles other lovers have pinched.
You give me room to breathe and bend.
You caress the ankles that have been banged up,
left out in the cold, and shamed into hiding.
I’m never going back to the painful excuse for love
that was doled out for years, confined to the streets.
We’re in the sheets now, but clothed and caressing.
I’ve decided: I’m taking you public.
I’m coming out this fall
when the summer sun fades
and earth continues to turn
and we are told to go back to normal.
I love myself too much for that.