Selfish Lover

By Ashley Geditz

You stare at me with your half-open eyes

And then your half-interested lips Ask me “what do you think love is?”

Knowing you only half-care and knowing that you’ll never really be mine,

I answer that Love for me

is not just cheesy hallmark cards and caramel chocolates,

It is not helium filled balloons or boxes containing diamonds.

Love is seeing a mother hold her child for the first time,

it is the explosion of light in her eyes and the warmth of her smile.

It is a man being a father to children who are not his own,

and knowing without a doubt he would give up his life for them

because they have now become a part of him.

Love is not a word to be used to get us women to go all the way

our virtue is something to be earned there is a price to pay.

Do not taint its worth with your selfish tongue

you should wrap your lips around it. It should caress the ear and ignite the heart.

Love is ecstasy meeting despair like darkness juxtaposing the sun.

It is a well of impenetrable certainty with ruptures of doubt,

like  a rollercoaster about to take its first drop,

It has a climax of anticipation and a tendency to fall.

It is being up until three a.m just waiting on that call

from the one person who cares about you the most,

You can be miles apart but still feel just as close.

Love is not resentful, it lets old grudges roll off of its back like

rain drops sliding off of a raincoat on a dark stormy night.

It is war, fighting for the right to love whom we want regardless of gender.

Love is a head bowing in what may seem like submission,

but  really a gesture of respect and understanding.

In a time where 1 out of 2 marriages fail, it is something to be cherished,

Like the eruption of reds and yellows that streak across the sky at dawn.

You must take care of it and respect it,

And carry the word in your mouth as carefully as it deserves.

Love is not just an emotion, it is a life choice,

It sometimes blinds us of the imperfections and ugliness of life,

Causing us to see the very best in humanity.

Love is not deceiving it puts everything into perspective,

Focusing a picture that was once blurred and cracked.

It is the ability to give ourselves to another human being,

not permitting fear to control us, and holding nothing back.

It is like walking in below zero degree weather and braving the cold

allowing yourself to be real, open, and exposed.

Love is not just about a bouquet of red roses in a vase full of murky water,

it also lies in the subtlety of the handwritten poem,

And the love of a mother to a daughter.

You can hate to love or love to hate,

but in the end it is all the same passion and energy.

They are the yin to each other’s yang,

like day and night, a manifestation of electricity across the sky.

Love does not bend its will to hatred,

it stands strong like the weathered oak tree, tall and proud.

You ask me, what do I think of love.

I stare into your uncaring eyes and say all of the above.

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Photo Credit: www.drawingteachers.com