how true or how deep, Love also changes...and it changes us. When we share our most precious self with another, we grow... and we change. When Love changes, sometimes it flourishes...and sometimes it perishes. The pain of Love lost, Love departed, is one of the greatest sorrows a soul can endure, and yet it makes us stronger-- if not more cynical and more wily. |
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following the break-up of my first "major" relationship. I spent months mourning the loss of my first true love, and I wrote a lot of poetry in an effort to purge my heart of all of my torture and anguish. Dark, somber, dismal, morbid poetry. I still have the originals of some of those poems, all penned in red ink (yes, for the pure melodramatic impact). Some of those poems are included in this book; others are hidden away in my files. Still others have been destroyed altogether in acknowledgment that I sometimes take myself a little too seriously. Although I have healed and grown in many ways since it was written, some of this untitled poem's concepts are still valid for me. I shall try to expound on a few concepts of the poem, in hopes that it may add greater (or, at least, some) meaning for the reader. First, and foremost, is the punctuation: no periods--only a single sentence that seems to go on without end, as if there is more yet to be said; note, however, that there are commas--interruptions in the stream of consciousness--which can be easily overlooked, and yet they serve a purpose: they elicit a pause, or emphasize a change of direction. When I refer to dreams, I am alluding to the activities that occur under the cover of Night: love, secrecy, betrayal, intimacy, confession, loneliness. Dreams are merely the stage upon which we assume roles and perform acts that "real life" doesn't usually tolerate. Dreams allow us freedom to explore the world, our fears, our fantasies and ourselves. Nonetheless, when we emerge from our twilight state, we are still only as we were before: alone. When I say, "In Love is Death," I am, of course, not speaking literally. I believe that when a person falls in love, a small yet vital component of their being is forever lost-- given to the object of their commitment. This occurs spontaneously and perhaps without conscious knowledge, with the realization of the absence only detectable after the relationship has perished. At that point, the previously insignificant fraction of the broken-hearted's soul becomes exaggeratedly meaningful and missed. But alas, once given, the gift can not be recovered. We mourn the loss of this tiny fragment, which perhaps represents the ideal of our self, the greatest we could achieve, the result of allowing ourselves to love. It is the smallest, yet most important, bit of ourselves that we share with another person. We can no more control its loss than we can recover it. We can neither retrieve this miraculous splinter of our heart, nor can we duplicate it... which makes it all the more invaluable. Also, if we can not personally care for and guard this bit of conceptual perfection (of which we were, of course, previously unaware), it will certainly die in neglect and obscurity. So, which is the greater loss that we mourn: the person upon whom we projected our image of utopian love and intimacy? Or the image itself? After all, the person lives on--albeit, without us--but that tiny slip of ourselves is lost forever. In Love is Death. Finally, there are those phrases where I call Love "its own death" and "life in simplest form." I can try to explain what I mean by saying that, to me, the beginning of Love is the beginning of the end of innocence. Love is wise and wary, and it necessarily must eliminate innocence to some degree in order to survive. Conversely, without the yielding foundation of innocence, Love's deep and questing roots could not take hold. Thus, the decimation of one is the bedrock for the other, with neither existing independently--a symbiotic relationship of nurturing and destruction. Life in simplest form: survival of the fittest. |
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| Note: The above poem spawned a storyline which I am currently developing into my first novel. I have posted the first chapter online. Please take a moment to leave feedback on what I have so far, and I'll post more as I gather my courage. |
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