Shattering Love
I know nothing
more of love
than you
I’ve felt its grip like you have
I’ve buried myself
in its memories
I’ve wandered through deserts looking
for mirages only
to find the actual oasis,
something to trick
my mind back
into what’s real
from its hiding place
in inevitable despair.
I know nothing
more of love than you,
for I am
a living thing
with a heart full
of envy born from
never enough, with a body
full of reflexes running
away before
desire could whisper
possibilities.
Some of us found
freedom in distance
with a sidekick of
longing for love we are
afraid we can
never have.
Some of us were lucky
enough for love
to sneak up on us, grab
hold when we weren’t
looking before the ghosts
of cannot consumed
us in our freeze.
Now I know what it means
to shatter,
like you do,
and to shatter, well
isn’t that the point of loving?
Love doesn’t make
longing disappear –
it creates space for
longing to be
free to scream
in a noise canceling room
with no inhibition.
It won’t relieve the pain,
just give it a pillow
& a soft bed at night.
It won’t stop the violence,
but remind us
why we fight,
create courage from
thin air when our salvia
runs dry, move
our bodies on the line to feel
reprieve from the aching
of our hearts.
We find it deepening in
the mundane of daily
repetition. Domestic
mornings becoming treasure,
exhale becoming intimacy.
We find it in
the some(one)
that knows every
detail of our Thursday
reflecting the steps of
naturally becoming
who we wanted
to be that crop up throughout the workday &
slowly over time.
We transform from
butterflies to moths
who can find the whole
moon in every streetlight.
We find it thickening like
the fifth hour
of a simmering pot of jam
incessantly stirring in
hopelessness until
all of a sudden
we notice it’s been
in process long before awareness.
We watch it morph melting
into hot wax taking
shape of its vessel for
flames to burn
down anyway
melting again
solely for
the purpose of a different form.
I know nothing
more of love than you,
but I know we stand
here together as reflections
to not take
for granted
the thing we know
we have but are constantly
fighting to feel.
To remember
how far we have come
together. To not
fill the emptiness
but give it space
to fill itself
Spending time thousands
of miles apart together still
in the lonely nights of the unknown
when you say
you could be
a whispering reminder
of a world outside
of the dark place
the brain spirals to.
I know nothing
more of love than you
because I learn it with you
as we grow together
and for
the moments
where we are
afraid to barely touch it –
may we never
forget where it’s taken us to
may we remember
to let it break us
open again
because to shatter well,
isn’t that the point of loving?
– Hayden Dansky