Tag Archives: love

Love and the Language of Connection

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Today I was pondering labels and the many forms of connection, and I had some realizations.

I view friendship as the foundation of any relationship, connection, or feeling of kinship. Every relationship I willingly allow into my life is, first and foremost, friendship. Sometimes it is also romantic, or sexual, or others of the myriad forms and ways of connecting, but that connection of personality, intellect, compassion, and relation is incredibly important to me.

Within those connections, and made families, and changes, and romantic ebb and flows, and the overwhelmingly integral strand of friendship, I also like to recognize that change is inevitable. Whether it is a deepening of romance, or a lessening of connection, or a change in the forms relation takes, I want to allow relationships to evolve in the ways that best fit the people engaging in them and their dynamic connection.

I do feel like labels can stilt that ability to ebb and flow and grow, by applying expectations for a relationship, and consequently guilt if or when those roles change and grow. But I also see their usefulness within our current cultural framework, where they allow understanding for others and sometimes a description that allows us to crystallize our own feelings. In addition, current language is weak in its ability to describe the diversity of connection without relying on loaded words.

How do you approach language around labels, love, and connection? Can you relate to the above?

Solar Flare

I tumbled off a cliff into your arms.
You swore you’d keep me safe from harm.
Twenty steps away: the ocean spray.
I’m so ashamed of my choice that day.

I held you, burying scars
from all the promises of our previous wars;
every false laugh an arrow to the heart,
but I just wanted a fire to start.

I wanted to feel the burn;
the flame and warmth a way to learn.
It was so cold. I just needed relief.
I forgot solar flares do more than just heat.

You burned me to ash. I crumbled to dust,
my old life gone with a single touch.
Everything stopped, even my heart.
There’s a little bit of glory in all new starts.

But glory doesn’t stay amidst bitterness and decay,
and every time my heart raced, it was anger, not grace.
You danced a great dance. Oh, so light on your feet!
But every dance ends, and ours did in defeat.

There’s no such thing as destiny.
We weren’t “fated” or “meant to be.”
Still, there’s grace in the effort; in building a dream,
but our grace was more drunken tragedy.

I tumbled off a cliff into your arms.
You swore you’d keep me safe from harm.
Twenty steps away: the ocean spray.
I’m so ashamed of my choice that day.

Razzle Dazzle

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I recently had to put a pet down for the first time. I’d had Tazzle for 7 years, since she was almost a year old, and she was a loving, loyal cat who got rapidly and inexplicably sick, losing much of her body weight, her ability to walk, and her ability to control her bladder in a matter of days. I made up a little ditty as I drove her to the vet, and sang to her the whole way there, then petted her until the light left her eyes.

I don’t know that I believe in an afterlife, but I do know that she was loved, and she’s no longer in pain. I can’t really ask for more than that.

She used to love being called Razzle Dazzle Tazzle, and I’d call her over to me with that and she’d come running, purring up a storm. This poem is for her.

Razzle Dazzle

I’d like to say I remember a day
when scattered hopes are gathered,
but the pounding in my head
leaves me far too bruised and battered.

You’ve been gone for two days
and already I’m a haze
of bad dreams, restless sleep
and a numbness I can’t beat.

I search for happy endings
whenever I try to write,
but tonight tears pour too free,
water drowning my sight.

Tazzle, you were far too young
to be given to the Reaper.
He laid his claim just the same,
no longer here to suffer.

Razzle Dazzle, dance on stars,
but remember me someday.
Find me when I leave this life,
old and wizened gray.

We’ll tumble down a rainbow
together that day.

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