I am Yours
Beloved,
I love you
Completely
Entirely
With every cell in my body
With every atom that makes up every cell
With the nucleus and nucleotides that make up those atoms
With the strange, quarks, and I forget what comes after that in my body
I love you with my soul,
that instrument of the Divine
which,
on it’s own,
is but a note in the song of the Universe,
but which plays a melody so sweet,
so ethereal,
so in harmony with yours
that my body,
this vessel,
this prison,
howls with the venom of monsters only witnessed in movies,
for release and blessed union with you,
My Beloved,
to endlessly play
an ever evolving song
I long to taste you in my mouth
and when I do
your taste lingers like a chemical burn,
like frost bite,
like that fucking numbing you get when you push too hard,
when you extend yourself so far,
so much,
that the energy that normally flows
with ebbs and tides
like an infinite ocean within Our Being,
for certainly we are now
and always will be
a single entity with distinctly separate bodies,
evaporates and leaves us both
so nearly breathlessly spent
and soft
and willing
and hard
and passionate
and wanting for more.
Oh, please, more!
I want to lay you in the grass by the pond
and gaze in quiet contemplation
until my soul is satisfied
and my body aches
and admire your beauty
in the same way that I adore the songs
of the hundreds of birds,
the swallow and loon,
crow and robin,
the hawk,
that ever present watcher of my soul,
and the black bird that is it’s sworn enemy,
and I want to add our song to theirs.
I want to write great love songs and poems
that proclaim your poise
your strength
your beauty
even when you are ninety
because when you are ninety
you will be even more beautiful
for having spent your life
loving and being loved
until there are so many
that I could spend all day
every day
for a year
reading the poems
and playing the songs
and still have not gotten through them all.
I would carry you across a burning desert
to protect your delicate feet
I would call down a wind
and command a rain
to keep you cool
and I would build a home
from the sand
and mud
to keep you out of the sun
and we would live there forever
because it doesn’t matter where we live
as long as we are together.
I want to make your life better than you ever imagined
and in doing so
make my own life better
and thus create
an infinitely building loop of betterness
for us both
and I want it to overflow from us
and spill into the world
so that it becomes better.
I want us to be the example
that people point to and say
“I want us to be like them.”
I want us to grow old together
and hold your hand as you pass
because I promise
I won’t ever leave you alone
and after you have taken your last breath
I will join you,
there,
in infinite grace for eternity.
I am yours
Always
Image by Mariel Milan Cruz
As published in Elephant Journal
Author: J.M. Greff
Editor: Taia Butler
Copy Editor: Nicole Cameron
Share this!
Wow! That one needs a warning label.
You have been given an incredible gift to have experienced love that intensely. Though the pain of letting go would be excruciating.
My first thought was where were the poets like you when I was twenty…
At twenty and into my thirties I was an idiot. When I hit my forties I actually started to learn. At 53 I finally know how it feels, know what it is that I want and how to express it.
The poem has a muse but, like all good muse, she is unavailable and I am alone. Which only makes me more passionate. One of those effects of embracing desire.
Life is funny like that.
I’ve heard that men start to ‘develop’ in their 40’s. I didn’t break out of the Disney bubble until my 40’s. Now, at 51 I feel real.
I figured you had a muse. It is unfortunate that you can’t continue that relationship. Yet, if it has inspired your writing, which speaks to me, I’ll consider it a good thing. Your poem Alone is one I get all too well.
Life is funny, isn’t it. The twists and turns that each individuals road takes and the paths it crosses… Sometimes I get stuck in a dark place it is comforting, in a way, to know other people experience the ups and downs as well.
Please, keep writing : )
“Alone” is actually how I feel most the time. The writing compensates for those feelings by allowing me to explore and express thoughts and emotions that I hold in store and since storing passion like this seems a waste (not to mention unhealthy) I decided to share it instead.
I actually find it therapeutic so you can count on me continuing to write about the whole plethora of emotion and experience of the roller coaster ride of my path. I think it’s important for people to know they are never alone. That we all feel these things we call “good” or “bad” but which are simply a part of the human condition and as such are neither good nor bad but simply “are” and I believe it’s equally important for people to read pieces like this to remind them of just how powerful an emotion love can be.
In the end, muse or no, it was written for no one and for everyone. So when you read it do so as if it were written for you and, if in allowing yourself to feel the passion I so clumsily attempt to convey, I have managed to put gas to your spark and lit you up then I have accomplished my goal.
Thank you for the encouragement <3
I don’t think your writing is clumsy at all. Although, since I can’t feel what you feel how can I make that assessment? You use the language of the 21st century and that can be clumsy, but it is what we have.
I Am Yours does light a spark. I’m not sure what to do with it. The spark… It hurts while simultaneously creating hope.
You’re welcome to the encouragement. I don’t give it lightly.