What Love Is

[poetdowns]

We are encouraged to 'accept the bad with the good'. About ourselves. About each other. The problem with that is tolerance wears out, 'cause patience wears out. People get tired, people have bad days, and on one of those bad days they won't have the patience to deal with something they never liked in the first place.

A person isn't made of bits put together like a jigsaw puzzle; a person is a whole being, like a painting. The bottom line is this is what true acceptance is, and you can't have love unless you have acceptance first. This is love:

You

I love you more than words convey

My thoughts embrace you everyday.

You have your little quirks and such

I've noticed them -they're not so much.

You embody, what i've longed for;

Pray stand by me forevermore.

All i want for you to do:

Is be with me, and just be you.

I wrote this for someone who has physical and mental disabilities. She saw those as barriers to being liked or being loved. Everybody -disabled or not- has their own quirks and behaviors, and once you see that then you see that we (the disabled) aren't any different.

Not long after i met her we were walking along and she said something i didn't quite hear. I said, "What?". She said, "I was talking to the voices, not you." O-kay. But the thing about me is that weird stuff doesn't really bother me. You see, the 2nd stanza says: yes, i'm aware of your voices and what you consider your "bad points" and it doesn't bother me, in fact it doesn't even stand out 'cause it's just part of who you are. Which is what the last line all ties together: i see all the things you are, and i want you to be yourself 'cause i like who you are. No strings attached. That's love.

I've been reading a lot in this forum about people questioning their identity, thinking their "weak points" outweigh their "strong points". I've read a lot of pain and wondering and doubt. You -none of you- are not a checklist, you're not a collection of "points". And someone who looks at you and goes thru a checklist, is wasting your time. (And will always see you as a checklist, that's not a person who sticks around)

Other people are allowed to decide what they want; just as you're allowed to decide what you want. Every person has that freedom. If someone doesn't choose you, it's not about rejection it's nothing to do with "not being good enough". You just don't happen to be what that person is looking for, just as you have decided in the past that some person wasn't what you were looking for. None of us can be all things to all people -that's what makes it not about rejection but about freedom of choice.

I had been hanging out with this one person for a week or 2, very nice, very pleasant; out of the blue she says to me "I can be a real bitch sometimes." Okay, thanks for the warning. It doesn't make her a good person or bad person, it just makes her human. I have the freedom to decide if i want to deal with that or not. I don't have the freedom to change her or rag on her about who she is. When someone wants to know about me, i have 2 poems written that tell you i'm rare and wonderful and half-crazy (crazy in a good way, not crazy in a slasher-film way). If someone doesn't want to deal with crazy, that's okay. 'Cause i give them the same freedom i demand for myself. I'm not rejected 'cause i already know that not every person on the world is going to want to hang out with me. (Astonishing, yet true).

Poet

[finding my way]

Thanks for your post, poet!

[paula]

Hi Poetdowns

Yeah, I can relate to alot of what you are saying! Whether I do anything about, who knows?