The love poem

She wasn‘t quite sure where it had come from or who had written it. A few simple lines that read:

I love you
if what I do
and who I am
makes you suffer
I suffer
thus making my love for you
a prison of suffering
I want to set free
my love for you
but not in sacrifice
of myself

She thought about the ones she loves. What did that mean “set free my love”? She needed her love very close to her heart and rooted deeply within her soul. Her own suffering was a source of compassion. Only in having suffered herself was she able to understand others’ suffering. Knowing what pain felt like enabled her to recognize it. “A prison of suffering” she read it again. Who would write something like that, she wondered. Her thoughts drifted to a memory years ago when Mother’s health had taken a turn for the worse. She was devastated because she couldn’t help her. Was she not a good enough daughter? Did she not love enough or do enough? Mother had said to her: “I don’t love you because you’re this way or that way, I love you because I do. God doesn’t care about what you think or feel, about what you say or do. He loves you anyway, unconditionally.” And Mother was right. She herself cared about what she said and did, she herself cared about how she lived. Which is why she chose love. God only wanted for her to be happy and would always work in her favor towards that happiness. There was so much to enjoy in earthly delights, pleasures without measure! Was not that why spirits became mortal, regardless of uncomfortable side effects such as vulnerability, pain and suffering? She had read about that in a book she’d received from a stranger on the street. He’d popped out of nowhere as she sat on a sidewalk in a city somewhere watching road life unfold. He'd sat down beside her and started up a smoke, she'd hardly noticed as lost in thought as she was.

“We take the now for granted,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s the problem. The now is not for granted.”
She looked at him as he continued to speak.
“First comes the preparation, then comes the molding. The molding takes time. That’s life giving birth to you, all the time.”

Eventually he told her that he’d written a book that no one cared to read and handed her a title-less manuscript before departing. And just like that he was out of her life, were it not for the book. He’d called himself a ‘thought-catcher’. Having had an interesting conversation with him, she was curious about the text. Some ideas contained within it reminded her of Mother’s words. One passage read:

God is a relationship that is always available to you. Reality is good and bad. It’s up to you. Life and Death. You know what? Death will happen on its own, you don’t need to make it happen. Love is a relationship that is always available to you. God is love and will always take care of you and move things in your favor. God, love, happiness exist and you may choose them – as you may choose anger, melancholy, indifference. What if you're blind to all the love amidst the pain? Though at times only glimpses reveal the love that is there, they reveal that unconditional love is available to you. Painful experiences are not punishment. Difficulty could be the result of walking carelessly through life, of being blind, deaf, moribund, numb, or just afraid. Which is fine too, if not very pleasant. It’s all part of life! The pain is important because it is your experience. There is purpose to pain: to remind you that you are alive.