A LETTER TO LOVE

Dear Love,

I don’t know what it means to be in you.
As if I’m knocking,
knocking
at your door.

Who are you?
A spark?
A feeling?
A check-list item?
Will I know you when I meet you?

Love, you are like this unsolved mystery that both attracts and repels.
You seduce as quickly as you dismiss.
You access the deepest depths of my being, especially the parts I am afraid to show.
You take my breath away.
You look at me like I am the only person in the world.
You love my scars,
especially the ones that you created.
Tell me how you can be so fleeting,
yet leave such lasting marks?

You are way too flirtatious,
holding me hostage to your sweet temptations.
A dance between wanting and being wanted.
You are hiding and I am seeking.
Or am I hiding and are you seeking?
How do you play this game?

You are like a whisper in a cacophony of noise.
Subtle and hard to hear.
A desired yet unarrivable destination,
with no directions or instructions.
Always shifting and evolving,
expanding and contracting.
Indefinable in your many manifestations.
Do I need to give you or do I need to receive you?

I don’t want to fall in you. I want to rise in you.
You unfold in seasons,
and sometimes you are too hot or too cold to bear.
How do I read between your blurry lines?
Time with you,
however long or short,
is never wasted,
and always unexpected.
You are a privilege,
but so often abused.

Pain is the sales tax we have to pay to access you.
I fear your rejection. The silent kind hurts the most.
Accepting you is giving you the power to break my heart.
Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless part of your company.
An expression of our deep care.
Something we held close
and now have to let go.
So then the courage to love is the courage to feel the heartbreak in loving.
A lifelong companion that both comforts and shatters.
A truth we accept
to experience the tremendous depth of you,
fully felt.

Perhaps you need to be in me
before I know
what it means to be in you.