I thought I'd loved. See, once upon a time
my heart was mine. To blow, like glass is blown,
to fill with my own breath, it's fullness finer
and finer as the molten walls went round.
I knew there was a craft to it, a patience—
and danger too, backdraft of its collapse—
but learned my turning slowly was salvation.
That danger, cooled, is nothing. Nothing lasts
for it's own sake. You can't just set it down—
not even for a second. That's the goal...
Of course it needs to be maintained: once blown,
a bulb has yet to manage to stay whole.
But that's not what I meant to say. No, listen.
There's more to it than craft, or luck, or kissing...

There's more than I have words to put to use,
more than us or them or all of it combined.
Once, I broke my heart—I broke it. Choose
love and you choose to risk yourself. That's fine.
In fact, I'd say it was the only way.
I tried to love and stay the same, but no.
You can't: I broke. And not to is the shame.
People don't always notice, but they know—
You know, don't you, when looking back, you're gone.
You can't remember who you were completely.
And I know that love is "not for everyone",
that having it is not the end—don't quote me—
but if it is, don't fool yourself. Don't choose
to spend your life alone, afraid to lose yourself.

I haven't meant a thing I meant to say.
I'm sorry. It's just, I mean it. Love and all...
I couldn't stand to lose you. Jealousy,
fits of insecurity—the small
of your back as you lay shirtless on the bed.
I can barely brave the thought of coming home
to my own messes only. True, I'm afraid
to be alone. So maybe I'm more prone
to take a shift for someone, to admit...
There was a time I thought that I was wise.
I loved my broken heart, was proud of it,
and played the prophet, dolling out advice:
how love is not an answer, but a calling.
And how to answer it requires falling—

But I was wrong. Not that it is an answer,
but that to love means more than one thing only:
it's in the practice: filling, taking chances.
It's not a room in which you're never lonely;
Instead, it is a longing to be lost
in consequences not our own, or mine,
a sacrifice, which comes without a cost,
that sense of self impossible to find
without a heart for wandering toward loss,
for leveling the fields so we can stand,
equally mine and yours. That choice is the source,
replenishing, unfair. No god, no man
has ever known this much—and yet it's there
in—count them—all these homes. For every square

mile in the world, some creature's lying down
beside its other. And if they aren't a human,
maybe it's easier. No money around,
not ego to inflict, no path illumined
by faith or lost through lust, just shared survival.
And it's the one who claims to stand alone,
who doesn't need a mate or meet a rival,
who plunders happily on without a son
or daughter, and is happy... making friends
who'll somewhat share his life, but not really.
I simply fear it's easier pretending
all company's the same, save all that feeling.
It isn't sex I mean. It isn't that.
It's who contains you most, yet gives you back.

It's whose own sorrow can eclipse your own,
whose race you run, whose charms outlast their wishes—
whose pleading seems for pleading's sake—the one
who runs ahead, but waits to watch your finish.
It's who is least compelled to keep you his,
but for whom you would comfortably become
a farther star, set trembling at a distance.
A smaller spool, a briefer line. Less fun.
It's who can make you question and amend,
whose fullness fills you also, time and again,
who's more than just another thoughtful friend
but an accomplice, mastermind, and then
the very thing you need for him to be—
Surprise, your savior, partner, company.