What Love Is – A Poem

There was a moment on my path

where things got dark, darker, darkest.

I looked up to the sky and wondered

when the clouds would pass.

I laboured on, despite the shadows

that loomed over the ground,

making the trees that lined the path

look impossibly tall. I walked on,

believing that I had to do

everything by myself, that I

was the only one I could count on.

Over time, things got a little easier

but I was lonely at night,

when the stars came out

to tell me their stories,

dancing across the sky

in an ethereal ballet,

I wished that I had someone

to watch the beauty with,

someone to take in the light

and let it shine out of ourselves.

Still, I trudge onward, knowing that

there was more to life than

shadows and misery. I knew

that there was joy and happiness

and brightness if only I took the time

to look around me to see it.

I walked on, my feet ripped up by stone

and glass, still determined to walk forward

instead of going backward. I just knew

that there had to be something better.

I fought on, my body scarred

and my spirit broken but healing.

I was picking up pieces of

the chalice that had fallen out of me.

I felt like I was following a path

of crumbs, like Hanzel and Gretel,

fleeing from the dark forest towards safety.

I walked on, and began to see

a light that grew brighter with each step.

Slowly, the dark clouds and the shadow trees

fell away until there was only light.

Standing in the middle of the light was you.

You held out the last piece of the chalice

and in your grasp, it looked like a diamond.

“This is yours.”

You said. I took it and felt it

slide back into my body.

You looked at me and reached out

your hand for mine.

“Come and walk with me.”

You said. I nodded and you took my hand.

We walked on and, after a while,

you noticed my feet. You bade me to sit

and you washed them and bandaged them.

“I’ll take care of you.”

You said to me.

We walked a little further, and the

the skies becoming brighter with each step,

I tripped and almost fell

but you held tightly to my hand and said:

“I’ll support you.”

We passed by a brook, it’s surface

like liquid glass. I could see myself

in the waters surface and turned away,

unwilling to look at all the scars

and lacerations upon my body,

marks of what I had been through

and what I had survived.

but you took my face in yours

and looked into my eyes.

“I love all of you.”

A hush fell over the land and a

soft breeze ran through the grass

making it whisper.  As night came on,

we could see the stars above us.

“And I love all of you.”

I whispered.

I looked to our clasped hands

and saw that a light, brighter than the moon,

shone out of them. It flew up

to the night sky and as it did,

it broke into pieces of softest light

that looked like diamonds against

the inky blackness of the sky.

As we looked up to the skies,

to the ballet of constellations

that was taking place,

I pulled you closer,

and watched as the tattoo of our hearts

was matched by the pulsing of the stars

in the sky.