Learning and Unlearning

I have been starving myself for a long time in many ways

The loss is a cleansing of sorts that has left me dazed and in disbelief

But this is what I am learning

I am saying yes and I am saying no

I am refusing starvation and deprivation of the soul

I can clearly see the historical timeline leading up to now

And then there is you

Filling and feeding and teaching me your way a new way

You directly defy all that I know about the world in which we live

About the way things are done

You look at me and you instantly become the object of my desire

And the rest of the world disappears

But I should never want anything myself and I would never want to contain you

I shall never seek to own you… own that which is not mine to own

Although, admittedly I dream of sharing a toaster with you

I dream of sharing a bedroom with a closet that contains my clothes and yours…but I digress

That is most likely just a dream and I could only be so lucky

But my luck has not run that way for quite some time

With you I am learning and I am unlearning

And I am trying to stay safe, I adapt to the chaos of you in a haphazard and dangerous way

And I feel alive and as if I am suffocating and breathing at the same time

It would be easy to minimize the growing pains that loss and fulfillment brings

It would be easy to minimize the hunger that grows

Because the hunger will eat me alive

I cannot stop things from leaving me or being taken from me

I cannot stop from falling in something with you

I cannot stop the pain that I will feel when you take that something away from me

I dream that you never will.. but with my luck you will

I have not been loved in a very long time my luck does not run that way

and it will not be until all of my luck runs out that I will ever be loved again

It is subtle how it happens though it is never overt and I can never actually see it directly

But only out of the corner of my eye and if I try to grasp it

It slips away

Or perhaps my eyes are always the first to look away….but I think this time it is yours

Because you dance so that nothing is disturbed not growing to the right of us

Or falling back to the left of us

But just right in stasis

Until you show up again

I have lost everything I have ever loved

I will lose love again and again

Nothing can stop this …Nothing can protect me

I am done with dying on purpose

Yet I choose to be hungry for the hunger

I choose you …to find the fulfillment of you in the spaces between us

Not to control, not to contain, not to make nice and neat

Not to strip away everything that you already are

To be filled with creating what we want us to be

To be filled with not looking away, not ignoring not denying

To be filled with occupying the space and expanding my breath

To be filled within the moment for what each moment is with you

No more and no less

To fill myself with you to fill myself with me

To fill myself with life to fill myself with love

Until love leaves and I choose to fill again

How Love Speaks to Us

There is something is us that cries out to be loved. Isolation deflates us. It completely trashes the human psyche. However, just as love is important it is also just as elusive. We have created a society where we teach our children the trajectory path to happiness is love, marriage and children...exactly in that order. Worse, we have been taught that love is a destination not a journey to be shared. We no longer teach people exactly what love is and how to love. And how could we when we were never taught ourselves? I mean come on you can't teach what you don't know.

It has been discovered that there are five languages of love. You can actually check out the book. It's call the five love languages by Gary Chapman. People show their love by words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service or physical touch. These are the ways that people 'speak' to each other to communicate their love. The problem lies in the fact that if we are unaware of our love language and unaware of our partner's love language then it's like we are speaking two different foreign languages and all that ooey gooey love we felt at the beginning will dissipate and our relationships will fail. The illusion of intimacy evaporates.

Unaware of our partner's love language, people generally take one of two paths. They resign themselves to love an unfulfilled life of misery or they opt out and try again. However, research indicates that a third option is available. That is to recognize that love is a temporary emotional high and once that is over, they now have the opportunity to pursue real love. Love that unites reason with emotion. It requires will and discipline. I asks that you show up for the other person, and to allow yourself to be loved by another person rather than to simply fall in love.

Ultimately this is to recognize that beyond all the chemical reactions that occur in the brain and affect the body when one falls in love, for example, oxytocin plays a role in bonding after sex and vassiprosin is released into the brain during sex to support the pairing of a couple and dopamine... oh our beautiful friend dopamine who keeps that good feeling going...we love dopamine. But I digress. I mean after all this chemical release, love is a choice.

Love is an effort and a discipline and we need to know that it is a responsibility because ultimately that person's life is enriched by our effort to genuinely love them. Furthermore, our lives are genuinely enriched by their effort to love us. This makes me think of the gift of reciprocity. We often forget that what we do has an impact on others.

So I decide to show up for love. I recognize that my love language is a little of all five with a majority falling into physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time and acts of service. That's what people can expect from me, whether it is a best friend, a lover or a husband. That is what I bring to the table. How about you?

How You Love Me For Now..If At All

To love me means to love the ebb and flow of me

To know that I come with my own rhythm

And to be confident enough to add yours to that.

It is easy to love me in the morning when my eyes are still full of dreams and memories of the sex we had in the middle of the night.

But to love me when the dreams fade and bittersweet memories come clouding my eyes and quieting my voice, is a sweetness that I will always remember you for

You don’t even know you love me but you do…at least just a bit or perhaps only in moments

Your love is a stage of love you have never known and have yet to recognize, but with me you might come to realize that what we do is love anew

It is easy to love me when I laugh at your jokes and battle your wits when you challenge psychological dispositions

But love me when I wake up snarky and need caffeine to get out of your bed is that something you can do? You do

It will be easy to love me when I make you dinner like all good Italian girls do and when I let you have your way with me like all ex-Catholic girls do

But loving me when I want to belong to you and you to me for a time before you leave, you think that will be difficult, but, that is just a lie you tell yourself

Maybe you think you are not worthy to love

Maybe you think you are broken

But I think we all are a bit broken and to love in the brokenness is the most beautiful of loves

To love fully for that moment in that moment of each other’s presence is the present that love gifts us with

And then we realize that there is no brokenness we are just stained glass windows

Separate pieces of color creating a whole scene of beauty that is impossible not to love

And this is how you love me

And this is how I love you