February 26, 1999
Love may be a drunken car,
but it was once sober and pure,
and whether it be
society
government
sociality
individuals
we are the ones who have intoxicated it
and displayed it as a shameful
difficult
torturing
object to be had.
Love does not hurt us,
We've hurt love.
Our twisted minds,
in their foolish quest to reign,
have strangled it,
and tried to reshape it as need applies,
and choked it,
and mangled it,
and cursed it,
and enslaved it,
and scorned it for crying when we beat it bloody.
Every commercial action and thought and desire
dilutes sweet love,
a sweet glass of orange juice:
Over time,
we've poured
bitter water
into the cup,
diluting it
diluting it diluting it
and all the while
the cup is brimming over with the tasteless substance
and spilling on the floor
on the carpet
on our feet
and we curse it
and blame it
and hate it
for the mess it makes.
And even though we pour,
gallon after gallon
of bitter water into the cup of sweet love
it fights like a salmon swimming up stream
to defy gravity and society
to climb the air
back to the counter's edge
to leap into the glass
and regain it's fruitful nature.
Then,
we could taste love and relish it,
could know truth and peace of heart.
Could defame the lies
rather than sweet love.
Love doesn't give up on us.
That's why
though we may
bleed at the gore of the deepest jab,
may be paralyzed and twirled senselessly into on oblivion where a hot pain reeks torture on us,
may turn envious and greedy and jerks,
may abandon our thrashed and scarred and ravished hearts for the solace of the unrelinquishing mind,
may feel a vacancy so deep, that we lie awake at night in hopeless tears,
with a crushing weight so abominable that we wither with each breath
and clench our fists, doubt our prayers, scream into the empty care of pillows
and dare to dream that the glass shards of unrequited love that claw a little more
with every memory of a the wrong choice, the wrong words, the what if's, the seemingly true love
will someday cease,
we can have faith and hope.
Because there are a handful
of human hearts
who but only by the grace of God,
paused
grabbed a rag
mopped the drenched floor,
with slow steps, reached the refrigerator,
and reaching blindly
found another glass.
A purer glass.
An untainted glass.
And a voice inside, exclaimed the terror of delay-
that after those necessary slow steps
we should drink now,
and know the truth now,
feel the peace of heart now,
and guard our glass against the bitter waters of
society
government
sociality
individuals
of our former loss.
The bitter waters are abundant, and they've convinced the senses to be numb.
You've made me cry.
"I know not love, still I know the anguish love induces
the deepest jab through the heart that bleeds the most.
The vacant valentine when you're anticipating a kiss.
I know not what she's thinking, but its not about I."
But this makes me cry more:
"Still the question I ponder over the most is;
why nobody in the world really loves me?"
That's a lie.
And still, this is painful:
"I know not love, but I believe that love grows old.
As old as the most ancient dinosaur fossil.
I know not the time, but I know the light is gone
the fire that kindled my spirit and raised my hopes."
The love of the world grows old, much older than ancient dinosaur fossils,
light-less, cold, hopeless, and with no spirit...
diluted and spilling on the floor,
but the love that lives within me is none of these things
and will never grow old.
I mustn't.
It is my only hope
my only light
my only renewer
my only warmth
to believe, to live by
to pray and hope and have faith that
someday it will be returned
by someone who's drunken from one of those pure glasses of sweet, fruitful love.
He exists.
And I'll just keep guarding my glass till he comes with slow steps.
She exists.
Keep guarding your glass.
Don't let the deceiver tell you
that you are not loved.
You are sweet friend,
you are.
