"Love is" [a poem]

Here's a short poem I wrote for a Creative Writing class I took last semester...I'm pulling it out of the archives in service to Valentine's Day - a day in which we all need to remember the multitude of forms love takes. 


Love is.

Has your mother ever stroked

Her hands through your hair, and then begins to braid

Making long sweeps of those long beautiful fingers

That at dusk otherwise play piano in the laundry room?

“I don’t know what makes my life worthy,” looking down, embarrassed

To which she answers with a smile:

Listen to your heart.

Has your father ever played

A week-long game of chess with you, the board set up in the kitchen

With queens, knights, and pawns patiently waiting for hasty fingers

That pause only long enough to help pieces avoid capture?

“I don’t know what I want,” you sigh dramatically

To which he answers with a swift checkmate and a wink:

Use your brain.

Has your best friend ever taken

Your hand in the dark, while you whisper

Confessions that are better heard by her

Than by any godly entity?

“I don’t know who I am,” you say, trembling

To which she answers with a squeeze of her hand:

But I do.

Has your lover ever asked

To be an admirer of both your body and spirit,

Of your laugh that is too loud, and your tongue that is too sharp

Yet does not overlook such things but rather finds beauty in them?

“I don’t know how to trust,” you mumble defensively

To which they answer with a kiss on your brow:

And then steps back without a word.

Have you ever wondered

About the power within yourself to embrace

Not a thing with feathers, but rather the breeze that lifts the wing,

Of hope and of faith in yourself and others?

"I must love the world anyways!" you shriek happily to the heavens,

To which the universe chuckles, casting new dreams into the sky:

And you dance, liberated.

Because love, despite everything, remains.