Old Rose
Old Rose
you stand so straight and tall
a blossom in a vase
the sight
the smell
the colour bright
You’ve kept your rosy ways.
It isn’t that I’m unaware
I’ve frozen you in time
a dried out piece of memory
unfettered by life’s grind.
No one expects you to move on
Or silence your heart’s cry
Or stop the tears that seem to flow
For a love that you wish near.
You gather dust
I blow it off
maybe I should let you go
but the secret between
you and I
the knowing I still care
you’ve kept your rosy ways,
Old Rose,
I’d rather you were there.
Not all of the memories love leaves behind are the bloom of the rose. Some are thorns. Pure, harsh, unapologetic thorns. Love gone wrong, Love turned on itself, Love that failed to cherish, protect, nurture. Some love is selfish and never sees the other. Some love is calculated and protects itself. Some love is not love at all, for it only takes and never gives.
But some love is sweet, and kind, and healing. It brings hope, it is true, and makes fear flee. Some love is safety itself, and beauty. It makes you ache for the purity and the life of it. It makes you yearn to be so unfettered.
Our relationship with Love itself often determines our ability to embrace it. If it is that which we never laid hold of, or that which betrays us, then fear masquerading as logic makes choices for us. We weigh the pros and cons of investment in relationship instead of asking how we feel. We settle for what we think we want because we are left in control of the safety of our own vulnerability and we choose what will hurt the least to lose. It’s comfortable if it meets some needs, but not all of them. It keeps me from needing that person too much. If they fail me, it’s not a loss, it’s an expectation. If I choose to be in a relationship that doesn’t steal my breath, doesn’t require investment, and will just leave me be, let me feel strong, let me feel I have everything to give, if they need, but I only want, I can be both attached and free… Loved, but uninvested. And my wounds stay hidden, vulnerable, untouched.
Pride’s Castle
I am safe here in my castle,
Where I let the drawbridge down
Release it with my smile
Pull it back up with my frown.
I don’t have to let you see it
That’s the glory of a moat
As long as I’m inside it
You stay out there in your boat.
I’m the king of my emotions
Full control of all the feels
I don’t have to let you see them
unobserved they aren’t real.
It is lonely in Prides’ castle,
No one’s there to break your fall
might as well become an island
If you stay within the wall.
Ah… but the drawbridge is the tell of the unhealed heart. An observant lover of souls still reads from the outside. Still knows, still loves, still is. Patiently waiting. It knows we are not the sum total of our wounds and woes. We are who we were before them. We are who we are when we let go. Some will the wounds to heal, walk into them bravely, embrace the relationships with man and Maker that bring freedom. Some seek momentary freedom in the high a substance or adrenaline rush brings.
My most difficult moments have come when I walked headlong into love and let it have it’s way with me. Sometimes it has cut me deeply. Sometimes I cannot pull out the thorn it leaves on my own. There’s a secret in that realization. I was not born to be alone. No matter how much I risk to love and be loved, there is value in each relationship. My wounds may help another, may make me passionate about the healing of others, my story becomes a conduit of love for a wounded soul who sought safety in their castle but found only aching loneliness. Sometimes the pain is not pain at all, but rather the uncomfortable itch of healing. Because He really is all in all, the Maker uses the most unlikely of humans to touch my soul, to remind me of who I am.
I am a human that was made for love, in love, to be loved. I cannot be untouched by human hands. My human hands must touch. Those who are wounded and choose to remain there perpetuate the illusion that humanity is an awful conglomerate of degenerate souls. Love screams out that they are not so reputed! It requests that they walk into an embrace that invites them to remember the first blush of the rose when life and love were new. When they knew who they were. If at any moment you feel joy or happiness, rest assured, that is you. In your truest most glorious state, you are the very essence of peace, love and joy. Don’t pull up your drawbridge and settle for anything less. O, I am not saying we are untouched by loss, sadness, and even violation of being at times. These things are a part of existence. But they are emotions, experiences, not identity.
You are truly resplendent. You are beauty itself. You are intricately designed both as an individual and as an intended contributor to the community of earth. Relax into Love’s embrace, and be. Just be. And when you do, and you feel the breath of Love draw your face to the face of another, stick around long enough to let them lower the bridge. Choose to be present. Choose to know. Choose Love.