A Poem About the Things I Love

Something fun.

Feb 12, 2025

Hello!

Since this is the week of Valentine’s Day, I figured it was appropriate to share a poem titled, A Poem About the Things I Love.

Yes, it is a poem about the things that I love.

And here is how the poem came to be …

As a Junior and Senior in college I worked as a part-time youth leader at a local church in Wisconsin. At the time I was studying the lucrative career of Youth Ministry and Theology at a nearby university. On Wednesday nights I would lead Bible Study and on Sunday evenings I would lead youth group for middle and high school students.

One Sunday evening one of the high school girls told me about the heaviness she had been carrying around. She didn’t use the words anxiety or depression, but we both knew they were part of the conversation. She bravely spoke up, revealing the things she had tried to keep hidden.

She told me about the stress of school.
She told me about life at home.
She told me about the pressure to be perfect.
She told me about how she wished she looked different.
She told me about the thoughts that were running through her mind.

I listened, trying not to cry.

We chatted about counseling and would later talk with her parents about the next right steps. But in that moment, I wanted to do something that would bring a little light to the darkness.

“Do you want to try something with me? What if we wrote down a list of all the things we love? You write a list and I’ll write list. Something to take our minds off the heaviness of the world and put our eyes back on what is beautiful.”

So, we did.

I am no therapist or counselor, but I do remember the verse in Scripture that says, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

So we thought about those things and we wrote them down.

My list eventually turned into the poem, A Poem About the Things I Love.

Enjoy.

And go make your own list.

With Hope,

Tanner

A Poem About the Things I Love.

I love poems that begin the same way they end.

I love full circles, like returning to where I began,

and seeing the leaves turn from green,

to brown,

to ground,

to green again.

And I love basketball, the feel of the ball, the sound of squeaking shoes, but what I love most is how it reminds me of my dad.

How after mowing the lawn we would shoot hoops in the street below the Florida sun, just father and son.

I love the smell of rain and the haunting sight of dark clouds.

I love deja vu.

And I love food that makes me hurt,

If you listen carefully you can hear the

bells of Taco Bell ringing and my stomach is ready to start singing.

I love feeling home in an empty room,

And I love when you text me and I wish you’d do it more.

I love when the windows are down and the is music loud.

I love black coffee.

Ethiopian pour over, if you will, but diner coffee will always taste like Saturday mornings at the Townhouse as we’d watch the chickens cross the road.

I love dogs and most days, I wish I was one.

I love words and how they can move us and heal us and shake us and shift us and leave us different.

I love front porches and rocking chairs and rocking with you without being distracted by our phones.

And I love romantic comedies, and I don’t know why, and I don’t care if you don’t, but do you remember in How to Lose A Guy In 10 Days when we knew what was going to happen but didn’t know how?

I liked that.

I don’t know why, but I did.

I love couches that hold you like a baby.

And it goes without saying because i’m a breathing human being,

but I love chips and queso.

I love road trips and spicy chicken sandwiches from Chick-fil-A and that’s all I have to say.

Except, I love when we are together.

The heavy loneliness melts away, and you’re the light that welcomes me home to stay.

The hands that wrap warmth around; the look in your eyes is a gift that keeps this list long.

And for a moment, I’m no longer stressed out or bummed out, I’m just happy to be here.

I’m just happy to be here.

With you, I’m just happy to be here.

I love poems that begin the same way they end.

A Poem About the Things I Love can be found in my book, Walk A Little Slower: A Collection of Poems and Other Words.