As the people all over the world muse on love (genuine of commercialized fluff) on this Valentine’s Day, permit me share with you some of my favorite original poems relating to L.O.V.E.
On Self-love
Ode to We
This is for my sisters, whose thighs touch.Whose arms hang like armpit drapes and whose stomachs bulge…
It is okay not to be O.K
Okay is never enough anyway,
They always want more.
So lift your arms and wave them ‘round
Cross your feet and pout your lips
Swing your hips to your own beat
And repeat: I love me
On Considering Love
Kintsugi
I thought of you when I learned of Kintsugi;
read about that Japanese art of recovering broken things with preciousness,
renewing the life of fallen pieces and restoring their worth two, four…a thousand fold.
I thought of you, lover-to-be, as a Kintsugi artist. A master craftsman, able to see possibilities in fragmented parts, worn and not quite whole, still useful.
See, I have shards of glass placed at the top of the walls surrounding this heart like those my grandfather cemented atop the fence around our family home-
To keep thieves out, to slice careless hands who come to prey… But an artist takes care, a potter’s hand is patient. So I can see you pick up these shards nimbly, one after the next, appreciating the story of each fall, respecting the painful tale of each break.
I can picture you pouring precious metal- emotions rare- unto sharpened edges piecing together what some would see as mistakes to create a testimony.
I thought of you when I learned of Kintsugi, and I thought of I.
I thought of us all, reflections of this philosophy; believers in broken things, people who would pour gold in cracks.
Card carrying members of ‘Hopefuls Anonymous’
Lovers; Kintsugi artists.
On Discovering Love
The Heartbreak
39 days ago at 7:47pm.
Your words, uncomfortably shared, speared the familiar sinking feeling of heartbreak within me
I find it hard to describe this feeling. Heartbreak resulting from unrequited love is unique you see.
Not quite pain, more like an ebbing ache of inadequacy.
Your heart twisting as if trying to find balance or return shamefully to the cage of your ribs it should have never left. Your windpipes forcing air out as though practiced in a Lamaze class. Keep going. Don’t cry. Just breathe.
I wonder at the break. Why do I feel it? When did you matter?
I am reminded:
It was Tuesday, I was sick and you came. I looked horrible but it didn’t matter, your eyes smiled in a way that made me feel beautiful. You stayed, made me laugh and left me feeling better than the treatment I’d been taking for days
It was 6th of June, I think, you shared a post that literally took my breath away, something I couldn’t believe you’d get. And yet you did. You got it and you defended it when the trolls came
It was the evening I left our meeting late and worry remained in your eyes as I took a cab. You took the taxi drivers details. Chatting with me all through till I arrived to be sure I didn’t fall asleep therein and get carted away… It was that dinner we shared, you remember the night you took me out for my favorite meal? Two phone addicts somehow able to not think of our phones for hours.
It’s been the never-ending conversation we have. Free flowing, humorous, unrestricted, digressing and yet still mutually understood. Able to go dormant yet reawakening within days with the same feel. The familiarity it bred
It was me struggling to contort this large body to somehow lay my head on your shoulder in the taxi ride home.
It was in my trusting you enough to drink in your presence. Comfortable enough to hold your hand and cross the road… I see now that it was a million little things. You may have come to me by chance but you did not come all at once.
You are the dripping rooftop that slowly made the whole house damp. Weathering defenses, surprising us both.
And this is how I got a heartbreak never knowing there was a love
Learning
i.
They teach you to forgive your enemies but rarely do they share how you’ll need to forgive your loves.
We all forget, you see, that we lift our loves on a pedestal, we raise them up like the moon does the tide of our feelings.
We make them gods because they make us feel more human, more magical, loved.
We raise them up involuntary and without consent. We raise them up until they fall.
Humans after all.
ii.
So today I will forgive you for not being all I dreamed you would be. I will forgive you for inspiring me to fly when you had no wings. No wings for you, no wings for me. I will forgive you for the rides of all-night talks and ecstatic daydreams you fueled, without telling me the petrol tank was uncertain, we were just kicking it. I will forgive you because you made no promise. I forgive you because you too are broken and should not have been put in a place to fix my own cracks. I will forgive you because I am learning the ways of love.
iii.
Now please forgive me for the selfish love I bore and thrust on you, a crown you did not ask for. The love that demanded more of you, than you were ready to give. Forgive me the luxury of rose-colored glasses that saw your promise but not your flaws. Not the vacuum you harbored still. Forgive me the good things I hoped and dreamed. Because I have learned even good things are burdensome. I have learned hope is heavy a thing around your neck weighing you down and adorning you brightly at the same time. Forgive me because I am still learning to love like God.
On Recovering from Love
P.S.
Perhaps soon…
I shall be rid of the residue of you.
Completely OK with the vacuum formerly your space in my world.
Perhaps soon, I shall have closure.
In the meantime. I remind myself:
I am enough.
Perhaps not for you, but for me. Enough for who I am meant to be.
I remind myself:
Not everyone was meant to stay. Life goes on.
Always…
But, I’m still not over you.
This is for my sisters, whose thighs touch.
2 Comments
Great Pieces Monique…
Hopefully we'll have you perform some of your work someday at our show http://www.blackswaggerpoetryslam.com
Thanks Carl! I look forward to a Black Swagger experience as well!