Poetry is a battle.

February 9

Poetry is a battle.
The same as love is a battle.
Waged not with hatred and blood,
But with blood and honesty.

We learn as children,
From fairy tales and nursery rhymes,
How love works, how it moves like the tide,
How it shines like our own inner light.

But then, something happens to us.
Call it the basic human tragedy:
Two ships, in different oceans,
Trying to pass in the night.

We begin to suspect we had been lied to.
That love is not a prince breaking a spell,
Or a fairy godmother casting one,
Or even a happily ever after at all.

We lose our ancient sight, and begin instead
To see the world as loss or gain.
And our perception of love is stained as well,
Turned into commerce by circumstance.

He loves me. He must. He said so?
She loves me. I know it. I made her say it.
And even a brief time orbiting such a dark sun
Kills something inside of us.

We find ourselves on a precipice,
Facing death in the whole
If we let love hurt us again.
And so we wilt.

We shiver into a cocoon with no butterfly.
We shrink down to dust motes,
To be seen only by transient sunbeams.
We die to the Truth instead of questioning the Lie.

And so many go to the grave as such.
But there is another way.
It is the way of the Rose AND the Thorn.
The Dreamer AND the Dream.

It is the hidden pocket where you stashed a seashell.
It is the dawn rising at the same time as you forgive yourself.
It is the sea filling tidal pools and then washing back out again.
It is the acorn rolling down the hill in search of itself.

It is us.