Alive

It is not life, to sit, chat-chit,

All elbows in and knees together.

It is not love, to pretend, without end,

All sickly sweet and smiles forever.

.

Life is raw and tears the flesh from you,

Rich with blood and steam, and fresh from you

Draws a howling wail;

When stretched the flesh must wail.

.

Remorseless, blameless, it grasps and takes you

Limb from limb it makes or breaks you

Neither is to fail;

In life you cannot fail.

.

In manners, yes, there are mistakes

And wounded feelings, hearts to break.

Amongst the rules we learn in schools

Are all the rights and wrongs of fake.

.

Truth has teeth and bares the soul of you

None may judge who know the whole of you

For we all are one;

So where was it begun?

.

The patterns match and tear through all of us;

Love is the rise and break and fall of us,

Sharing the pain of one;

In truth we all are one.

.

Deep in the well of souls the forces

Set the patterns upon their courses,

Darkly now we see,

And forget that me is we.

.

With life and love and truth a part of us,

Savage joy the very heart of us,

Illusion can be undone;

We see we all are one.

.

(c) Jenny Ford 2006

If you are the kind of person who prefers to interpret poems yourself, don't read this bit!

Have you ever been in a situation where someone else thinks you have been "uncaring" and "insensitive" because you did something that someone else didn't want you to do?

Or wanted you to pretend to like something, or pretend to be someone you aren't, just to make someone else happy?

This is poem about the impossibility of being authentic, and therefore truly intimate, while following the socially prescribed rules for (inauthentic) relating.

Authenticity is scary, yes, and confronting - but it is the only path to love.