The Multiplicty of Love
Valentine’s Day isn’t really my jam, but I was in a philosophical mood, so I wrote some poems about the many shapes and sizes of love. (Also I know I haven’t posted in well over a year. Life has been lifing. But that’s a discussion for another time.)
Searching for Words of Love
I thought to write a poem for my love,
but I struggled to commit words to page,
they were silenced as though orders above
dictated they may never leave their cage.
Yet still they fell from my lips—into hell,
perhaps? My lungs could not contain the fear,
the hope, the promise that they would not tell
how I so yearn to have you close, my dear.
To the extent that I believe in gods,
to the extent that I believe in fate,
I cannot help but wonder at the odds,
that in you I could find a perfect mate.
(No one is perfect, and yet you alone,
have been the first to make me feel at home.)
Clarification One: Polyamory
I feel as though I must clarify for
anyone who is somehow unaware
that love is not an open and shut door,
that love can be found almost everywhere.
To say that the love of my life is found
is not to say that my openness to
finding new loves has been completely bound
for I know my love does not end with you.
My family and friends, I all adore, and
my life is full of love of all kinds. Plus
polyamory is more than a trend,
it is built on community and trust.
(While I don’t need others for fulfillment,
multiple loves don’t negate commitment.)
Clarification Two: Love and Sex
Then there is also this to ponder, why
must sex and love be intertwined? Can we
not distinguish as we do earth and sky,
who work together like you and like me?
Older than the gods, they come together,
to build this world up, and to tear it down,
they bring us many storms we must weather,
they teach us how to swim or to drown.
This is all to say that love and that sex,
great motivators that they are to us,
don’t always follow one after the next,
but that both require the utmost trust.
(I won’t lie and say I don’t like them both,
but one is not bound by the other’s oaths.)
Clarification Three: Asexuality
But the thing is, why do we care so much
about whether other people have sex?
There is more to life than sexual touch,
we must acknowledge people are complex.
There are so many ways to live; why does
anyone think they have a right to say
that people must have love and sex because
without it they are throwing life away?
Asexuality is not a curse
or something to fix. Everyone
is owed dignity, don’t try to coerce
as though a life without sex is all but done.
(Asexual does not mean abstinent,
but that is bigger than sonnet content.)
Clarification Four: Aromanticism
These are love poems, make no mistake. Yet,
romantic love is not obligatory;
its lack is not your business or a threat;
not all of life must be a love story.
I myself am a romantic at heart,
so I cannot speak on this with much depth.
Still, aromanticism is a part
of life best not under the rug swept.
One does not need romance to be complete.
People are different in what we need.
Life is not always so tidy and neat,
people deserve complexity indeed.
(The multiplicity of love should be
acknowledged, honored, celebrated, free.)
