The Break: Love and Release
Kerrry James Marshall, Vignette 13, 2008
This collection of poetry comes from a time when I had to truly choose between loving and letting go. bell hooks truly had it right when she said, “It is easier to articulate the pain of love's absence than to describe its presence and meanings in our lives” (All About Love, xxvi). Trying to find romantic love while young is just a series of mistakes and growth, but I refuse to call any past relationship a mistake. Prior to my last relationship, I thought finding love where I could be my true unwavering queer self was impossible. Love brings so many lessons and I challenge us to sit with the pain and truly analyze what lessons love brings. What I learned most from bell hooks was that loving yourself must come before you can reasonably love anyone else. We are the foundation for the love we seek and are always waiting for a spark to light our fire. Make sure you check out All About Love it is a must-read for anyone looking to explore what love means in such despairing times.
The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark place waiting to be born-waiting to see the light. - bell hooks
Heartache
It is 6 AM, and I wake up with you on my mind.
I’m worried that I will never be able to hold you again, see you again.
Worried that our last goodbye would be just that, one last goodbye.
It hurts having to accept that all we will have moving forward is past memories.
We have become distant strangers and I have subscribed to the YouTube channel of heartbreak.
And this heartbreak shit ain’t no joke.
Feelings of insecurity bearing down on me, choking me, leaving me breathless and claustrophobic
The rage filling you with a symphony of emptiness and blame
Clinging to a future, leaving me delusional hoping for some distant future utopia.
A hope that someday our hearts and souls will meet again and attempt to fight for love again.
See, this is heartbreak fueled by emotional crises and physical aches.
Not simply a detachment but like a flight we embark on new journeys.
Yet I’m stuck at baggage claim trying to decide if I am truly ready to visit new places.
Somewhere deep inside I want to take you back. I didn’t want it to end. I wasn’t ready for it to end. Especially not like this.
Is it Love?
Is it love Is it love that I’m feeling?
If it doesn’t last forever?
Is it love?
If it hurts more than it helps?
What is love anyway?
An exhausting cycle of joy and pain?
A bouquet of memories and emotions entangled with monstrous and conditional intimacy.
Is it love?
If it hurts to leave?
Is it love?
If it sticks through pain and strife?
I ask again is it love?
This shit hurts
You did not just hurt me but you broke me
Left me to pick up the pieces of my shattered heart all alone
Left me clinging to a breathless and lonely love.
Left me thinking our relationship was just an illusion and that my love was just a one-sided fantasy.
You left me wondering how love could result in this much pain.
Choked by the fatigue and sleeplessness of heartbreak yet I am grateful,
I thought I would never love again.
I was reminded of a hurt that I thought I left behind in a past life.
Was it my fault?
Did I lose you by not loving you properly?
Was this simply another lesson from the past or a message for the future?
I am so damn tired of being strong all the time.
When will I get my opportunity to break down?
When will I be afforded my opportunity to feel without being told to just move on?
How can I accept that this was an inevitable part of my future?
Why can’t I grasp that this was bound to happen? Should I?
Does grasping with that make it hurt any less anyways?
Being told to move on and focus on the future angers me more than anything.
How can I look to the future when I am so stuck in the present?
I need to be ever present in the now.
Why bro?
Why leave me like this?
Hurt l, shocked and choked by the grip of heartbreak
Why did it have to be him?
Why be so selfish and sneaky with someone you claim to have a love for?
Just why bro?
Why leave me stuck between anger and sadness?
Stuck wanting you back and wishing you never existed
Just why g?
Why let me in and break my guard just to hurt me in the end?
Why the betrayal?
People don’t talk enough about the pain and depression within heartbreak while young
The forcing myself to eat.
The anxiety that happens whenever I sleep.
The pain of having to cross paths with the person that broke your heart constantly.
Why bro?
Why wasn’t love enough? Why did it have to be my friend?
Just why?
And ik I won’t ever get the answers to these questions.
But part of me still wishes I could just go back.
Back when my memories of you were more than just anger and sadness.
But I’m moving forward making peace with the past and leaving room for the future.
India Arie said it best…“This too shall pass”
Love is as love does. - Inspired by bell hooks and Donny Hathaway 🖤
Love is not enough
Love does not mean being together forever.
Love can’t save you from the pain. from the call and the need for separation.
Love requires communication, closeness, and consistency.
Love is not finite but infinite.
It is limitless. Queering time so that it becomes merely an afterthought. Love is endless but ever changing.
Love is pain and transformation.
Love is an intention and action. The will to extend oneself for the purpose of one’s own or another’s spiritual growth. Love is spiritual work.
Maybe that’s why the divorce rate is so high today.
Cause people have such limited definitions of love.
Love is not like Hollywood. It is not happily ever after but a continuous commitment.
There is no default in love. In monogamy.
Does love ever die? Maybe that’s why she left.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t talk enough.
Talk boundaries, expectations, and thank her for her experiences
Is that what created this pain, lack of communication, and too many unsaid expectations?
Love Love Love Love Love, why’d you take so long to come to me?
In between guilt and love
I feel stuck.
Stuck between the guilt of not loving you properly and the guilt of having loved you too soon.
Stuck in a love limbo and mute to expression
Is it a crime to love so soon? Giving into love early and wanting to lock in.
having spent little time unlocking each other’s secrets.
Is it possible to love through such detachment without vulnerability?
Is it possible?
To love through depression
To love without having had enough of it myself
To love from deficit and defeat
To live a life loving dismissively
I feel guilty.
Guilty for not loving you properly and for letting my responsibilities and inconsistencies come in between us.
for letting you slip through my hands
for not letting you into my heart.
I feel stupid.
for letting time and fear dictate our relationship
for letting my mind control the decisions of the heart.
I feel stuck.
Stuck romanticizing love
Looking to movies for hope and restoration
Looking to social media for signs that you still love me.
I feel stuck.
Stuck in between the guilt of not loving you properly and the guilt of loving too soon.
“Love allows us to enter paradise”
“True love does not always lead to happily ever after, and even then it does, sustaining love still takes work. “ (181).
“Often we confuse passion with perfect love. A perfect passion happens when we meet someone who appears to have everything we wanted to find in a partner” (178).
In love and revolution,
John West Jr.
