riding into the golden white hue of dusk
i was compelled to ask
“how has love changed over the years?”
from my first kiss and first grade crush
to the last sweet goodbye, i must,
with candor, say
love has not changed
much
over the years.
love still endears
and proves strongest
when it is but a stranger.
and the greatest danger
also remains
the most innocuous—
familiarity, complacency, ennui—
these three shaking
the foundation of fidelity
and tranquilizing the passion
that inspires our greatest forays
into the unknown.
surely, love has grown, matured
as much as me, and learned all the lessons,
which my erring ways so readily
offer, but its fiery spirit still blames
its foolishness on the guiding forces of youth—
existential curiosity, the search for truth,
the pure glee of naïveté, the fearlessness
to do and say as you please, the courage
afforded by ignorance, the mirth of discovering
what is worth tendering, the rewards
reaped when one is willing
to risk—everything.
hence,
i’ve found love remains the same;
it can either be one’s bane
or one’s greatest source of bliss—
and one must risk one to have
the other.
but the greatest peril of all
lies in resigning
to a life not willing
to fall—fearlessly
in and out of love,
again.
the art of love
l.m