Love

Love

A Poem by Zoe Jay

True love is dark.
True love is acceptance.
Accepting ANYTHING, and loving regardless.
Accepting change, and weakness, 
and badness, and difference, 
and loving anyway.
True love is passive.
Learning that love leaves you more open to hatred,
than you ever were before.
Love is love, even in hate, in frustration,
in the inevitable subjugation of the self,
in acceptance, in submission, we grow...
in acceptance, we learn humility...
A little subjugation of the soul,
never hurt anybody.
Love has no pride.
True love turns our energies outward,
ruptures the pieces that we painstakingly 
built ourselves upon, into an explosion,
breaking us inside, forcing the spirit
out into the world, to be, to grow, to live...
True love truly should be 
that which makes us everything
that we can be.
But love, real love,
love that grows us, 
like seedlings brought into the light,
is not desperate.
Desperation is dysfunction.
True love, functional love, is calm.
It does not "need" nor "despair",
nor swallow a lover whole in it's maw.
Dysfunctional love,
as it both opens our cracks and fills them,
is the hardest to leave.
When will the fools realize,
that the force that ensnares them most firmly, 
is not love, but NEED?
What we seek is not love.
It is reassurance. Validation. Release.
Affirmation. Security. Protection. Guidance.
A temporary relief from fear.
Love, real love, does not fear.
It does not fear lonesomeness,
nor rejection, nor loss, nor time,
nor inadequacy, nor competition.
If you think you love, ask yourself first,
do you fear?
If you think you do not fear, ask,
Am I enough, by myself?
You will never help another to grow,
to be more than they are,
if you need them in order to complete yourself.
If you love in need, or fear, you do not truly love.
You only satisfy yourself.
Satisfaction is not love. It is only respite from need.
Contentment is not love. It is blindness.
If you see romance, that is not love.
When you feel his warmth, that is not love.
Love is not firelight, nor beauty, nor self-sacrifice,
nor warmth nor companionship.
It is not love which makes us smile in the night,
it is not love which makes us weep in the street.
You are not ready to love, if you don't know what love is.
If you cannot walk away, you are not ready to love.
You cannot win if you are not ready to lose.
You cannot see clearly, things which are too close.
Love, of which we speak so lightly,
is an intellectual pursuit.
It is not grounded in instinct,
nor in the bundle of neuroses we call "emotions".
True love does not come naturally.
It has to be earned.
It has to be earned, 
in the fires that burn away our needs and wants.
It has to be earned, 
when we face down our worst fears...
(Fears, those fears,
the ones we didn't know existed, 
in the dark days, 
the days when we thought 
we could avoid attack
by not learning how to defend...
blind days,
when our certainty was our undoing,
and we blinded ourselves,
so we didn't have to see the truth,
blinded by fairy-tales,
poking our children's eyes from their faces,
before they could see...)
Love is not blind.
Fear is blind.
Love illuminates our fear.
Amplifies and magnifies the shadows,
amplifies the allure,
amplifies the anxiety,
amplifies the appeal,
amplifies the anger,
amplifies the arousal.
Princes and princesses,
die in this land of shadows.
Lies and fantasies,
blow away in this wilderness,
scoured out by the sand,
just their bones left to bake,
in the eternal sunshine of love. 
Are you ready to love yet?

© 2013 Zoe Jay


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Featured Review

Dysfunctional love,
as it both opens our cracks and fills them,
is the hardest to leave.
When will the fools realize,
that the force that ensnares them most firmly,
is not love, but NEED?
Wow....no wonder love is so damn complicated. You explain the highs and lows of it very well. No matter how you look at it.....real love takes work if you want it to grow. Well penned.

Posted 13 Years Ago


2 of 2 people found this review constructive.




Reviews

Zoe,
This is an excellent verse. It flows very well. I like the way you were able to 'open a vein' and let your feelings express themselves. I feel as if I got a little insight about you, my friend.
Hope to review more of your writings.
Your friend,
Thomas

Posted 9 Years Ago


You Scots are right on with your poetry :)
This was just fantastic and I think ... it may have matured me a little :)

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Take pride in being one of the few good writers on here

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Is it weird that this was really informative to me? It is full of good lessons and they particularly spoke to me as someone just old enough to start thinking (probably wrongly!) that I know what love is! Everything is wonderfully explained, logical, and insightful. I especially loved the point that "if you love in need, or fear, you do not truly love. You only satisfy yourself." So true and that was something that I needed to hear.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Wow!

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

What a twisted veiw of love.. This one really gets ya thinking.. amazing.. bravo :)

Posted 12 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Until I read this I had a simplistic
view of the subject.
I thought love was dedicated
committal to another.
Thsi s a monumental work.
Thank you,
----- Eagle Cruagh

Posted 12 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Love is not blind.
Fear is blind.
Love illuminates our fear.
Amplifies and magnifies the shadows,
amplifies the allure,
amplifies the anxiety,
amplifies the appeal,
amplifies the anger,
amplifies the arousal.

Amazing write:-)

Posted 12 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

such a true poem about Love, i really like this poem, its so close to the truth about love and i guess no one really knew what love actually was until you read this peom :)

Posted 13 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.


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1357 Views
29 Reviews
Rating
Shelved in 4 Libraries
Added on September 24, 2011
Last Updated on July 28, 2013
Tags: love, true love, lovers, relationships, fear, insecurity, anxiety, detachment, emotions, feelings, intellect, analysis, wisdom, life, pain, blindness, trial, weakness, spirit, dysfunction, spouse

Author

Zoe Jay
Zoe Jay

Los Angeles, CA



About
I come from Fife, in Scotland, and I now live in Los Angeles and run a business in the music industry. I've been writing poetry for about as long as I could write! I had a poetry collection published .. more..

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