Warmth

In your home
On your couch
You’re gone
we sway to the song of being
Apart but connected

I’m surrounded by your life
Your memories
Your ways

It’s been six days
of Love
of Learning
of Growth
of Exploration
of Ecstasy
of Pleasure
of Touch

But perfection?
Sweetheart, we fall again and again

Both of us
create movies in our head
of how the days will play out
Reality unfolds how it will
the director
grins at the naiveté
of our screenwriter
our planning and anticipation
Showing us how things
will be
need to be

Cruel life
it leaves us with the fallout
the pouting
of unmet expectations

My love,
what our strength is
what comes in and awes me
is how we roll up our sleeves
and do the work
to let go into what is and
Not
what we think it should be
no matter how hard that is

I can’t count the times I’ve cried
all my fears and wants and love and insecurities
well up
and out
washing it all away
leaving me exhausted and open

It scares me
this vast space
unwalled
unprotected

Leaving me naked
and shivering
vulnerable
laid out on a bench
hands bound
as if on a cross
legs open
restrained and apart
both Willing and Sacrificial
then…

being open
doesn’t have to let in hurt
possibilities see the gap as well
and rush to fill it
fluid running downhill
collecting at the lowest point
raising the surface level
higher

your warmth comes
your heart
your hands
your eyes
your care
stroking me
calming me
enfolding me
in boundless safety

Not protecting me
Not shielding me
You
blowing on the embers
gently
till my own warmth
my own love
spreads through me
steadies me
in this exposed place
my power
my heart

Guiding me
must exhaust you
Still, you’re there
steadfast
though your own humanness
your own
fears and wants and love and insecurities

our temporary limits
our cross purposes
our disappointments
our fear of disappointing
it’s all here

So is our love
and our yearning
and how we navigate it all
you should know
you have to know
how different this is for me
how my mind fights me
how weary I get

But regrets?
Second guessing?

Honey
I’d rather surrender to You
to This
to Us
to work
to tears
to complication
to frustration
to Love

than relax into
comfortable
manageable
familiar
easy

this shift
is a process
such a process

every step
a meditation toward
unfurling a bud, tightly closed
layers of petals protecting its center
teaching it to bloom

the soil
the water
the plant
All Mine

but You?

You, baby
You are the Sun

~

Author: Jill Kern

Image: Joannie Dennis/Flickr; martinak15/Flickr

Editor: Catherine Monkman