Love and I: A Poem in Three Parts

I.

I was once told the way I love was “too much.”
I didn’t understand.
Was the love too deep? Too needy? Too obsessive?
Did I give too much, or not enough?
How could I feel so inadequate, so “not enough,” and still be called “too much”?
There is a loneliness in the way I love, now.
A fearfulness, now.
A worry not to give too much away, or I’ll be caught out.
“Aha,” they’ll say. These people I love so dearly, these people I adore.
“There it is. The raw aching neediness.”
“Look at her. So weak.”
So I struggle not to suffocate them.
I suffocate in loneliness instead.
Hesitant over every touch
Holding back every gesture
Always taut, ready to back away, ready to run.
It feels like a curse to be blessed with so many beautiful people in my life.
And still worry, now, always, constantly, that if I showed them the depths of my affection
I’ll lose them
Knowing, as humans are still social beings,
that if I don’t show enough, I’ll lose them
And I resent the unfairness of it all
Love shouldn’t be this tied to fear
Love shouldn’t be this lonely
This ache a perpetual gaping wound
This need like a throbbing pulse
“Too much.”
“Too much.”
“Too much.”

II.

I pledge allegiance to love, unconditional, pure
I pledge allegiance to kindness.
I pledge allegiance to acceptance
I pledge allegiance to joy for joy’s sake, to guiltless pleasures

I pledge allegiance to equality, and equity, and justice
I pledge allegiance to freedom without harm
I pledge allegiance to movement
I pledge allegiance to nature
I pledge allegiance to being able to spell allegiance 10 times fast
I pledge allegiance to the people who sweep the streets, who plant the trees, who make the coffees that keep us going, the people who power our cities and who are the vertebrae of the spine that holds up our societies
I pledge allegiance to my sister
I pledge allegiance to my friends
I pledge allegiance to love
I pledge allegiance to love
I pledge allegiance always, forever, to unconditional love.

III.

Always such a dichotomy
Between who I am and who I want to be
Between fear to love and loving fearlessly
Between not enough and enough
Between holding back and that brush of touch

Always such a cliche
A Gemini with two sides that hold sway
Caught between silence and the things I want to say
Caught between leaving and wanting to stay

Always trite words that can’t encapsulate
All the swirling things inside of me
Holding my breath so they can’t escape
Constantly waiting for the moment I can exhale