LOVE EXPERIENCED

I used to dream that when love found me,
It would hold on to the strings of my heart and never let go.
I used to look longingly at pictures of love
And wonder…
“how would it feel to be caught up in a web like that?”

Now I know.
Now, I know that love is more,
less and all it’s fabled to be,
I know it sounds impossible, but true.

The promised butterflies have built a cosy nest in my bowels.
There are nights when my lips weave themselves
into a neat smile as I lay in bed, thinking of that place where my heart is.
To count the mornings when I wake up with the same name
resonating in my head would cause a mean blush…if I were Caucasian.
Love is everything my aunties said it would be.

The pictures did not prepare me for this consuming feeling
that refuses to be put to rest, even just for the night.
They didn’t foretell the unnatural but musical words
that would flow from the lips of one, through the ears of another
and make their home in the heart
or how comfortable I’d get with PDA.
Love is a stronger brew than they warned.

But aunty must have forgotten to mention that
Love doesn’t stop the heart from breaking.
She must not have known that
though love welds the cracks in your heart,
it undoes it all with it’s warmth.
She could not possibly have realized that each time
Selfish words are uttered,
They’d somehow cause my heart to snap
in places that didn’t exist before.
Or that love could be a yoke
that I’d beg to take with me to my dying bed
Cos hurt as it may sometimes,
I’d rather have a day of these beautiful chains
Than a lifetime of freedom wandering in solitude.