love to grow

 

i. Baby Love

 

When I was a child, I spoke as a child

The most musical language I’ve ever known

When I was child, I thought as a child

A universe of imagination all my own

When i became a woman, I put away childish things

In the tradition of women since women became,

I traded my naivety for knowledge of evil and good

 

My first memory is a thunder storm

In the dark of night the Southern sky

Opened up and sang a lullaby

 

When I was six

I fell in love with love

The summer sky sang praises while I grew

And with the purest, boldest conviction I whispered to it “I love you”

 

 

At 13 i would sit at storm door in the front of the house that kept us apart

My mom called it shelter but I called it caged

And I sat trapped

in sight but out of reach from my beloved

And I watched, listened, and loved as my beautiful storm raged

 

ii.  First Love

 

My first love was dark chocolate

Bitter and sweet

 

My first love was a shoe that you really liked

But never fit quite right and just left you aching

 

My first love came in form of a summer storm

He roared

His voice made the sky fall and the trees tremble too

And with the purest, boldest conviction I whispered to him

“I love you”

 

By then I was far away from the home with the storm door

I stood out in the open, arms wide

Even after he struck me , I didn't think to hide

 

We climbed to the climax and the view was so beautiful that I forgot to always look down

I didn’t.

Smiling wide, I dove head head first from a cliff

into his sea of beauty and dreams and brokenness

I hit rock bottom

And at the tender age of 18, I drowned

 

iii. Forced Love

 

My heart stopped beating and my body lay lifeless when he found me

A sudden jolt of electricity resurrected me and I awoke to his face

Alas my saving grace

 

“I owe you my life..”

“Non sense, I don't want anything . No favors needed”

“Please don't interrupt . I said I owe you my life. I owe you everything.

I will you sing to you and come at your beckon call

From here on out please accept my everything . I give you it all”

 

A man will not stop a woman from loving him

Even if he does not

Even if she does not

 

I was 21 when he escaped the gentle suffocation that I called love

I cried a river hoping to drown again

But death never came

Why would he bring me back to life only to give me pain?

 

iv. Self Love

 

Since I could not die i had to live

With the only love I had left to give

My storm was gone but still the sun did not show itself

Day after day was bleak and gray

 

Until, in the midst of my nothingness, I noticed a voice

It not like it had just appeared

If anything it had just been ignored

She sounded tired, desperate, neglected

She begged for my help and three times I rejected

 

She cried out as if I was all she had

and eventually my sympathy for her wore me down

 

“What can I do? What do you need?”

“I don't know. I want to grow, but there's no sun here.”

 

She was a flower trying to bloom in a dark room

So I made renovations

 

I opened up

to let the darkness out

I tended to her day in and day out

 

I did not have a green thumb for my flower

There were times I didn't do my best work

Every now and again I would forget to water her dirt

or give her more space to grow

But in time she blossomed and her colors,

though faded,

began to show

 

v. Our Love

 

My flower bloomed, her colors brightened, the smell of her sweet nectar

stirred up a lot of buzz

 

Many came to her offering little but admiration for her petals

 

But one came and saw her soiled pot too

He offered her baptism in a fresh shower and aerated her dirt with life

And she grew anew

 

My latest Muse is a soldier in the army

He marches to the beat of his own drum

He fights in field striped white and red

with cotton and blood

 

My latest Muse composes

God’s favorite form of art --

Sound

 

My lover is a lullaby without the storm

 

My lover is cool rain hitting a tin roof

while the sun still shines

And up above us

a rainbow forms

God says to me

“See I promised to never

to destroy your world again”

 

vi. The Greatest Love of All

 

I asked Him, why me?

And He said

“With all your filth, your sin, your dirt, you planted a seed in dry Earth.

You worked this land.

You watered it with tears.

You gave it dim, but steady light. You watched over it

day and night.

You've waited

for your seed to bloom.  

You questioned

if it was still there.

Digging through your dirt over and over again.

And when you found that yes, there it still lay,

You cried out ‘why me?!’

 

You drained yourself empty to give it life, and finally you started to see a sprout.

Your seed grew to bloom but not quite right.

The stem grew twisted

because it grew in the night.

 

Love is the greatest

and you were right

to fall in love with love

But you did so out of order

You fell in love with the storm and you ignored the water

You lay on top of your dirt instead of diving roots deep into its center

You shut your curtains in shame and you should've let light enter

 

If you're soon plucked from the place where you grew

If you're ever cut down

and need to start over

If you're ever trampled on, crushed, and tried too

Remember what you have been told

And pass it on when you are old --

Every living thing needs love to grow.”