This is not a poem

Creative Forums Creative Writing
1

What would you do if the one you loved
was not the one you were with?
What would you do if the one you just cried for
was not the one you were with?
What would you do if your impulses captivated you
beyond all reason,
beyond all understanding,
beyond all comprehension,

just not to the one you were with?

And yet, you being you, made promises;
you being you, did love, indeed –
but knew not the meaning of love.

And yet still, you being you, know all too well,
that you shall cry for the one you are with dare you leave,
that you shall love the one you are with dare you leave,
then my dears, what will you do?

Can you long for another, can you long for love,
while you are in love?

But dears! don’t you understand? You shall long,
and long and long and long, and long some more,
dare you part with the one who needs you.

Is that it then? Are you gone then?
Having succumbed, you ask: is that it? is that it?
But my freedom! Where is my freedom!
Where are my wings! Where is my love!

Is it here or there? Is it there or here?
Is it her or her, him or him, here and now, there and then?
Where and when, when and where? I plead! I beg!
will love be found?

2

I don’t know…so my below response is not really an answer.

From someone who has never been in love and/or avoids it…Try not to need people. Do not stay with those who need you, but instead stay with those who want you. Promises mean nothing when the one who has made them is now a ghost.

Again, I don’t know.

3

I shall hazard an opinion…in addition to the one about liking your work. Love is a cagey beast, hiding in the brush of stale relationships. I know it’s there because I saw it crawl into the cave. I wait and wait some more. When that stops working I try to lure the beast out. If that doesn’t work I go into the cave. And on and on…I KNOW the beast is somewhere, for I saw it at the beginning, when I promised myself to her. I may lose interest and seek another beast altogether, but me doing so says nothing of whether the beast was alive just around the bend, or in some deep crevice waiting to be rediscovered by a soul’s footstep. It only says I have given up. I KNOW the beast is somewhere…

4

So love is a beast that likes to play hide and go seek and you must never let it remain hidden? And you must always be the seeker?

How do you find it? And can you hide from it? Who is victorious?

(okay…again I don’t know and I don’t think I believe those who say that they know)

5

Thanks for the responses.

Gamer,

The beast seems to only come out and roar when one is with another. It’s a damn joke man – it’s comprable to being in London and wishing one was back in New York, then, when one comes back to New York, the only place one wants to be, yes you guessed it, London. And you can’t forget the ever lingering presence of Paris, but of course one has never been to Paris.

Then, of course, you realize the fact that if you don’t take Paris with you you won’t find it in France (thanks to whoever said that). But that doesn’t help because one has no idea of how he found New York in the first place – they only know that now they long for London. And fuck Paris.

6

thanks, i needed that (reply intended only for poem itself…and maybe author? yes probably).

7

Seeing love is an art form. I don’t believe it’s best when you sit passively as it washes over you. You have to be flexible, creative and persistent. The less rules you’re bound by, the better,. because you may have alter the way you see many times. The rigid lose site of love because they can’t turn their heads to follow its trajectory. Rigid, facing in one direction. Stiff neck.

8

Love happens when you aren’t looking for it. For those who seek, love will fail to materialize.

To be loved, one must be love. One must be love when alone or when with another. Love of another isn’t a need, but an act of sharing. Do you love yourself enough to share?

JT

9

Interesting way of putting it, “Do you love yourself enough to share,” but what if one loves oneself too much, so much that one is unwilling to share – now the point is reversed.

10

Yes!

This is one of the reasons I find it hard to sincerely love someone else. I love myself so much that I am unwilling to share. I feel so much love for myself that I don’t see how someone would be able to adequately accept any gift of love from me. Who wants to debase themselves and dirty a part of their love so that they may love someone else?

Does a degradation of self love have to precede sincere love of another?

(ok…I realize this is a bit of a rambling and others have discussed this in a much more appropriate manner…however I thought I would share)

11

Kristalyn wrote:

In a way, it seems that it must. Consider all the religions crying out against man’s vanity, i.e., self-love. Yet, there may be a point to their cry, consider the words of Maimonides:

“If I am not for myself then who will be, but if I am only for myself then what am I, and if not now, when?”

An interesting point. Perhaps we owe to others, and perhaps tentative’s point is right on the mark: what greater gift can we give, but the one that we cherish most, ourselves?

Of course, it implies, taking on a responsibility for the other – the existential burden of having to bear responsibility for the world – if one is willing to accept it. One is certainly not forced, but the question in my mind still loudly rings, if I am only for myself then what am I? And do I not owe? I don’t know about you, but I feel indebted to many people – to many teachers, friends, family, ILP members, etc.

Am I but a human leech or will I share my humanity? My humanity: that which makes me human and connects me, that which I love most about myself, that which binds me to others: the absurdity of life in the face of death and the suffering that is unique but at the same time universal – the common thread: the human suffering we are all bound by.

Perhaps, the key, is to see the part of yourself that you love most dearly in the other, the pain, the struggle, the strength, whatever it may be.

Well, I’m just sprouting thoughts around – make what you will. I’m not convinced myself, though I like what I hear.

12

Ive been thinking about this,
but because i wish to not be slave to my bodies craveing,
and wish to want nothing,
and feel releif when want is gone…
Id view it all a bit difforently.

Id say:
“She is a greater gift then my own body,
and i cannot apreshiate either of them…
if i waste my time wanting somthing…
that is less precious then what i alredy have.”
Id say:
“Desire for the exiteing things,
is as mundane as mortal “achivement” that never slowed death…
and even excelorated it!”

My body and my craving, all but completlely…
loves it’s own lies and distant illusions…
Balance is not it’s pleasure or it’s pain,
therefor balance means nothing to it…
and everything to me,
who has said to anamal and man:
“Why?.. (and eventualy) No!”
So i will rejoice at the tears of my craveings,
and attend their funerals with a smile on my face,
because they were a burdon to spirit,
and the true wants, once dead, are resurected,
and are the refined and fully understood need.

“You dont know what youve got till its gone”?
^I let go of want for this reason,
again and again and again…
for the truth.

If we eat somthing that hurts us yet tastes good,
or take what we see away from thee,
it is in effect a statement of higharchy within,
and higharchy is what makes the victim.
It sais:
“The toung is greater then all the other parts of me!
You shall all suffer, and i shall not care that you suffer,
because the taste is what i wanted,
and pleasure is my god.”
^this principal applies to all things…
Including the sexual organs, as you well know,
and then on to the people around you vs thi self.

13

I guess I was a bit obscure in what I said last, but it really is fairly simple although too often overlooked: loving another is sharing, not needing. If I need another person to ‘complete’ myself, then I’ve admitted being incomplete within myself, and I cling to that person as a life preserver. If, however, I am comfortable in aloneness (not lonely) then I can be happy with myself (self love) or be happy sharing with another.

This is why I said that you can’t look for love, it just happens. Looking for love is the same as needing, which means that I’m looking outside of myself for completeness. It isn’t going to happen. When I’m simply involved in being who I am, and I’m happy with just being, (self love again) then sharing my being with another is possible.

And so, the statement: Do you love yourself enough to share?

Does this make a little more sense?

JT

14

well that’s truly what it’s all about.

When we give love only to recieve love, we don’t receive the love we are looking for. When we give love to share love we don’t care what type of love we recieve back. the redoration of compassion is nice, but un-neccesary if one has reach completeness.

Selfishness is derived from incompetence, incompleteness. You are afraid to share, because you are afraid of losing part of yourself. When you are complete the love of others will change you, and I for one welcome change. Without change we are spiritually stagnant, the rock growing moss at the top of the hill because we think we’ve attained the ultimate truth.

I say roll with life, or life will roll over you.

15

But if your perents didnt love you much and u didnt have much freinds,
then it would stunt your ability to love yourself,
because we do need others.
We may need them less as we grow older,
but surely we need the love most when young.

16

Hi Dan,

It is true than one ‘needs’ nurture, and there are many kinds of love, but my statements referred to romantic love, which was my impression of the poem. All sorts of understandings are brought to the question of romantic love, and certainly nurture colors that understanding, but assuming even minimal nurture, one must grow to be love if one wishes to be loved.

JT

17

Oh, were talking about wanting to have sex with?
Lo, “romantic love”… =P~ woof.

…You know, its like if you had infinint money,
would you buy everything you ever saw adds for on tv?
…If you had infinint spermz would you try to have sex with every girl you ever liked the looks of?
^
Dan’s comparison/principal. #-o
and now…
Dan says: “Romance is a fake-assed-son-of-a-bitch!” :smiley:

18

It’s not like you can run out of sperm… it’s not infinite, but it might as well be.

19

Oh oh, Side trip. Romantic love does not equal sex, although sex could be one of the results. Romantic love could also be seen as the desire to share intimacy with another. All the hormones not withstanding, love could be seen as intimate life sharing, which certainly brings with it sensuality, (it feels good) which can either result in sex or transcend sex. It just might be that the hunger for love is really the desire to intimately celebrate being alive and if one understands this, the sex part could be the least important aspect.

Back to the important issue. It’s still about being complete within ourselves. Only then do we have the capacity to share who and what we are with others. We’re all capable of lust, but being capable of loving is an entirely different thing.

JT

20

Romantic love is being able to play scrabble by a fire while drunk and naked without thinking about sex…