The Book of Weston

I want love natural and tangled,

love that shatters shame to pieces,

deep security born out of freedom,

love without secrets, to hear

    of my lover's lovers and smile,

trust without ownership,

that look in your eyes that says,

    “I love you for your possibilities,"

to hear "I love you" and know it means:

    "I want you free;”

I want to be held without being held onto,

to look back on years and know

    we did this without coercion,

to hold someone's heart

    without consuming it,

to submit to the body whether it says:

    "yes" or "no" or "wait,”

to feed a connection

    without starving others,

to take what is given without craving more;

I want to remember

    that culture is poison to love,

    that we must divorce them at all costs,

that love can be something quiet,

    mysterious to others, unvalidated,

that any linguistic constraints we invent

    (vows, labels, promises)

    are only flimsy weightless words

    we must repeat to keep real;

I want to understand there are more loves

    than words for it, that language

    always cheapens love, that words

    couldn’t possibly touch it,

that love is something we create,

    not something we must conform to,

that we can watch it unfurl

    without trying to shape it

    into some lifeless commitment,

that love will crush any rule we impose;

I want love without the specter of future,

just for tonight and tonight and tonight,

to accept that uncertainty fuels love,

to feel it slipping away and know

    this is what makes it special,

to savor the pleasure

    of "I don't know where this is going

    but I love it here, now, with you,”

to bask in the total lack of deadlines,

to love beyond time, distance, and death;

I want to say proudly, "This is X, my lover,”

to inhabit that magical liminal space

    between friend and lover,

a spectrum of closeness, access

    to many doors of intimacy,

that lovely transition between connections,

appreciation without comparison,

to remember lust isn’t the same as love

    but it's close,

and that "friend" is the weakest word

    for the deepest possibility;

I want to see heartache as part of the process,

grief as love's necessary shadow,

to be present to love's ceaseless unfolding,

to believe time loving is never wasted,

to know that goals are the enemy of love,

that love is here

    and then gone and that's perfect,

to see that love is no conquerer,

    that sometimes we must let love go

    to clear space in our hearts for new love;

most of all, I want to know

    that my wanting is not in vain,

    not an empty fantasy,

    that I am capable of all of this

    and that you are, also.