Friday Love Poem: Hannah McDonald!

Emo grrrl solidarity for life, Hannah McDonald!!




It's Complicated, for Coming-Out Day 2011


The love I choose is complicated, and where some may deem it selfish, immature, too idealistic, even adulterous,
I would suppose that I see things a little differently.

Hello, I am a:
Love revolutionary.  Relationship anarchist.  Shining star of a constellation.
I have tried to deny my heart a hundred thousand times,
And yet it just keeps on doing what it does best.
My love is an artfully tangled web of silver and gold, of bandages and twine and cotton candy.

Damn you, Facebook, I cannot change my status from "Married" to
"It's Complicated" or, even worse, “In An Open Relationship” without being interrogated about what's wrong.
And that's just it.  Nothing is wrong.
My name is not Ashley Madison, this is not a case of a bored housewife and a pool boy.
This is just me, and what makes me happiest, and so yes, there is sex and romance and shameless flirting,
But also support, love, emotions, family, the good, the bad, the heartbreak that keeps you up at night,
The hope that keeps all the broken conversations alive, the fights that dissolve to tears
And our hands clenched together so tightly.

When I fell for you the first time, maybe I frightened you a bit.
Perhaps I still do--I've tried to warn you I can be almost too romantic to function in this world.
When I fell for you, when I fell for him,
when I fall for you, or her, or them at some indeterminate point in the future,
Know this:

I love you.

When I say this to you, I mean it.
It is a fact that can bind me until I no longer remember how to extract myself.
I will spend too long apologizing for how overwhelming I can be.
I fear scaring you away.

When I fell for you, when you told me you loved me for the first time,
It was a first time I had not visited for a decade or so.
The rain on the roof was just loud enough to keep you from hearing my pulse.
Your kiss took a tattered young woman and pulled her back together.
Forgive me; sometimes it was a challenge to detach myself for an hour, for an overnight, for a day.

I breathe.  I wait.  I know every day is not going to be perfect.
I hope that you will stay for the long haul, however long that might be, what that might entail, I do not know.
Yet, I promise to apologize when I can't quite get it right.
Love is not quite science, the numbers on the scales don’t guarantee equal balance.
Love will become even less stable when you'd simply like to hold it quietly in your hand.

I smiled whenever I found him sleeping, his warmth softening my side of the mattress,
wept when I unearthed his Valentine from the depths of the bedside drawer, but may never throw it away.
I blush, imagining the breath of another against my skin as he whispers poetry of sex, power, and fire.
I wash my best knee socks and skirt so I might cheer up a dear friend.
I married my best friend, my lover, and he understands nearly everything.
I love you, the plural; this is just who I've finally become, who I've always been.
I write rambling love poems to sort out my feelings, but they could just be so endless.
I could type all night.

My dear fellow Libertine, let's not debate our schedules this week.
I just want to hold your hand.  I just want us to be whatever we decide to be.