I sang loud once about Jesus loving me.
But all I ever heard of him
Was secondhand and shadowed
By the planks he bled away on.
I promised myself I was in love
When I was in kindergarten.
I married her by holding hands;
She left me by calling us what
We were (a game). And still
She's right – in a muddy echo,
At 30 – loving means too many
passing things to be a promise.
*
At 12 it was strange and hot,
Formless. Just the memory of a
Horror-film succubus, then a
flash of a May-pole waking me.
By 15 that physical tack collected
pretense and I asked myself what I'd
Do
to prove my love – I decided on
Pain. A non
sequitur; just a release.
At 18, 20, 22, my
love was a fairy-
Tale. Each one was
the only one (
Ever, every time)
past girls were
Follies.
But she was perfect.
*
I think I've
decided to under-
Stand: my love is
only as good
As I am. My love: a
game, a
hot flash, then a
story. My love
At 30, quite
pragmatic: a smile,
a hug, a brush of
tongue that comes
back basking, true as I
give out.
Simple, real,
better than alone.
That's the one
thing that love has
Always been (over
childhood toil,
wilting angst, and
existential lostness):
Better than, better
than, better than.
The honest ironic moment that encompasses humanity comes after the realization of the tendency to fantasize the perfect love story and chase that specific dream, but only until after a breakup we endure the moment of clarity, which is that reality is not what you have been yearning for. It is ironic that after ending relationships with perfectly good partners in order to find the epic love, you've driven off love itself, and here you are alone. As Kuntzman goes through the stages of his life and the way he felt during relationships, it resonated with me as I realized that where we are in life, taking into account age and aspirations and lifestyle, on the surface we want different things in a partner, however the underlying desire is to be with someone so we don’t have to be alone.
ReplyDeleteThis one resonated with me, too. But I never really thought this version did the message justice -- wasn't as clear as I wanted it to be.
DeleteTake a look at the re-write I did for it (September 2016), if you want...I like that one a lot better :)
I read both the original poem and the rewrite. Although I like the rewrite better, I feel like both have different meanings. The original follows the speaker as he grows older and defines how he feels about love at each age through different experiences characteristic of each age. As the speaker grows older, love has more nuance. The speaker realizes that love comes with pain, loneliness, promises, and betrayal. At the end of the poem, love means more than just holding hands and calling it marriage.
ReplyDeleteThe rewrite of the poem focuses more on the idea that the speaker’s experience with love is different at each of the ages he describes because he is a different version of himself at each age. The idea that “my love is only as good as I am” shows that love looks different in everyone at every stage of one’s life because the love will only reflect their own goodness. The rewrite introduces a woman in the second verse who loves very deeply, but unreliably. It details her relationship and her relationship with alcohol, and the couple’s sad demise. This demonstrates that the love that she shared with her partner was only as good as they were as individuals. The rewrite also includes a refreshing honesty and bluntness when the speaker reflects on the kind of lover he was at 24: “I wouldn’t have dated me back then.”
I always enjoy reading anything on the idea of love because as this poem shows, love looks different in every friendship, partnership, and relationship, and it means something different to everyone at every stage of life. Unlike what many books and movies like to present, love is a lot more complex than a Disney ending. This poem perfectly encapsulates the idea that our love for others reflects our truths and our flaws, which is why everyone’s experience with love changes over time.
I'm glad you found something in both. I find, when I look aback at poems, that I don't (and really can't, genuinely) write like I used to ~ my spirit changes, and I can't fake the old orange flame, when it glows yellow now. So I always hang on to the originals. Always something to remember or re-learn from my younger selves :)
ReplyDelete