If I am to be Loved

 

If I am to be loved,

how is that supposed to work?

 

I have often been told in order to

be loved, you must be yourself.

I have also been told that in order

to be loved, you must love yourself.

I have been told that in order to

be loved, you must sacrifice yourself.

 

Am I supposed to be myself?

The best version of myself?

The version most liked by others?

The version I like in the quiet?

The version liked amid the noise?

The version I like least?

 

If I am to be loved,

who am I supposed to be?

 

The fiercely independent one?

The mildly co-dependent one?

The sad one?

The happy one?

The loud one?

The one blistered by experience?

 

Won’t I be loved if I am just

who I say I am?

Without accommodations?

Without having to change everything?

Am I not worthy of love as I am?

 

If I am to be loved,

what do I have to give up?

Why do I have to give it up?

 

Aren’t we supposed to be loved,

by someone who accepts all our parts,

the independent, the co-dependent,

the sad, the happy, the loud, the blistered parts,

in a beautiful human package, wrapped

in a bow of contradictions?

 

If I am to be loved.

 

Ladybug

 

The Ladybug scared my young cousin.

He screamed when he saw it and jumped back.

I told him to calm down and that it was okay

as it was only a ladybug.

 

He wanted to know what

the ladybug would eat.

I explained they don’t eat people or little children,

just plants and leaves.

 

I said ladybugs are pretty nice

as bugs go. They don’t mean us any

harm and just want to go about

their ladybug business.

 

We peered in closer as the ladybug

crawled along the edge of the outdoor

mat, just outside the back door.

The ladybug, oblivious to us watching.

 

My young cousin was no longer

nervous of the ladybug as I again

explained that they didn’t mean us

any harm at all.

 

He wanted to go back inside anyway.

I opened the back door and let him in.

The ladybug, never the wiser of our

whole conversation.

 

The rest of the day, I thought about

what I was afraid of, what made me

jump back with a fearful shout and

whether those fears would eat me.

 

Or rather; what my fears do eat.

Bottling

 

I’m a bottler.

I bottle things.

Inside myself.

 

The bottles are hidden.

Sealed and stowed.

I hope they don’t explode.

 

The bottles are full,

of tears and torments,

rages and pains.

 

Stacked in glass.

Delicately, one on top of the other.

Clinking.

 

A rumble too far.

A jostle too much.

A shove.

 

A tip or slip in the wrong direction,

they all come tumbling down,

shattering on the floor.

 

The glass cuts.

The contents spilling, flooding,

nearly causing my drowning.

 

The broken bottles.

Glass all over the place.

Dampness seeping everywhere.

 

I’ll sweep.

I’ll mop.

I’ll clean.

 

Find the unbroken bottles.

Get new ones to fill.

Stack them again.

Love on an April Afternoon

 

So many letters, words, sentences,

lines, paragraphs, stanzas, books,

and tomes dedicated to the very single

idea of love.

It is impossible to comprehend the amount

of verbiage spent on one little, tiny, word.

 

We think it about all the time,

even when we don’t know we’re thinking

about it. It’s in almost every word we speak

and in every action we take.

That love thing.

Always in what we are doing.

 

Even if we’re doing the wrong thing,

perhaps it’s self-love, perhaps it’s stealing

bread to feed our loved ones, perhaps it’s

just love of possessions, love of a high feeling,

love misinterpreted by a mind starved for

that minuscule word.  Love in anger. Love lost.

 

I love this or that,

I love them or those,

I love thinking of him,

I love thinking of her,

I love her nose,

I love his face.

 

We love.

We devote ourselves to it,

we pine for it,

we search the skies with telescopes

looking for some validation of our love,

we want it as much as we want to give it.

 

That one, single, silly word, that looks

sort of funny – LOVE,

Sort of skinny and fat at the same time,

lanky and short, pretty and hideous,

made and maker, taker and breaker.

 

Love on an April afternoon,

on the Nile, in the dark, on the shore,

in the space in between, on my mind,

out of my mind.

Put on this Paper.