Poetry: Love Is…

Back in 2017, a friend asked me to write a poem about what love is. I accepted. As we embark officially on this holiday season, I ask you to set aside the Black Friday deals and shopping madness and consider what love means to you and how you can celebrate that love with the others around you today and each day moving forward. Today, I am thankful for the love within my life and how many people I am able to say I truly love.

Love is giving of myself until I can’t give anymore yet not losing myself within you. 

It is surrendering my all to you, even when you haven’t given anything to me; yet, limiting how much I give out to ensure I am not enabling you in bad habits.

It’s picking you up off the floor when you overdose. Holding your hand as you recover. Checking in on you for the months to come.

It’s giving you space yet not letting you go when you need me to hold on.

It’s allowing you grow and shine, ensuring the sun is always shining on you, and watering you when the rain stops coming.

It is laughing with you when you need a smile, crying with you when you need to release, and walking with you in silence when you just need someone to be there…without being there. 

It is holding you when you need to be caught. And letting you fall when you need to grow. 

It is stabilizing you when you are out of control and helping you loosen up when you become too stiff.

It’s listening to your dreams, fears, hopes, and faults. And overlooking the tics that make you who you are — all while taking them in and loving you because of them.

Love is giving you all of me when I have nothing to give anyone else, and finding myself revived to overflowing by pouring out to you. 

It is feeling your presence when I am unable to feel and knowing you won’t leave when I push you away.

Love is being able to speak my mind, and hear yours, and give us both freedom to rise. 

Love is waiting and hoping and knowing that it will all be okay even when the world seems dark and life seems hazy. 

Love is you and me, working together to rise above the pain and break through walls to help one another become all we can be.

Love is words on a page and actions toward another that change the course of each other’s lives. 

Love is finding you on the floor bleeding and helping you to the white couch while the ambulance arrives, then staying with you until the tubes are no longer the only breath in your lungs.

Love is looking past the bruises and the pain and seeing the person underneath and helping her bloom.

Love is seeing beyond what is to what will be yet fully embracing what is while it becomes what will be.

Love is the taking on of flesh when the problem seems unsolvable and all seems hopeless. 

Love is the crimson red that flowed from a couple of sticks on hill from a man people despised. 

Love is the stone that was rolled away and the Christ who showed his scars to Thomas.

Love is God giving a second chance to praise and worship.