Editing a Love Poem
By: Natalie Lafrance Slack
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Metaphor, Love, Poem

edit: do not

rely on metaphor

as no one wants to read about how

your love is like a tree trunk

standing against

come what may

wind whipping leaves off at spring limb

roots uncovered by bulldozer blade

or carved into with knives or blood or

the Hope of Next Year

love is flipping a coin

and letting you call it

love is the Mekong River

transboundary

mostly mud and suffering

weaving tributaries through

farmlands and fertile lands and dry lands

and hours where you will not see another soul

and hours so crowded and clamoring

you’ll feel at one with the heartbeat of everything

uniquely held in the hull of the watercraft

brave enough to traverse her murky waters

love is the flood and love is the

vessel that withstands it

and nobody wants to hear about

how love is a rock skipping across

a smooth pond

mountain lake

clouds reflecting on split surface

because nobody wants to hear about

the ripples

and the waves

and the ways

that love skips years or months or moments

is lost underwater

comes up for air

spends moments or months or years

holding a breath

drowns fully

resurrects

or sinks to the bottom of the sea

because love is lost, too, and often

edit: do not rely on simile

because nobody wants to hear about

the ways that

love is the long sigh after a deep sleep

no

love is the deep sleep

no

love is never falling asleep because

love is in being fully awake

fully visible

fully seeing and fully seen

but love is blind

and love sometimes goes for days without lifting her face to meet your gaze

and love sometimes cries her eyes out in loneliness while you’re

in the room where love takes place

because love takes up space

and love has boundaries

and love is boundless

and love is the lines between two destinations

but love isn’t a destination and doesn’t follow road rules

or roadways

or waylays or alleys or getting from A to B

because love isn’t a binary

love is the wind laugh on the tail of a kite string

love is no strings attached

freedom to dance and cartwheel

love is a rope swing in a tall tree

love is the noose around the neck of possibility

and love is the very essence of possibility

come what may

edit: nobody wants to read about the ways that love is

impatient

unkind

envious

boastful

dishonorable

self-seeking

record-keeping

failing

never enough

but love is a battle cry

not a victory march

and love only hurts because when loves isn’t there

there’s a ripped open

blood-letting

wound left in it’s absence

love is the bandaid

love is the bullet

love is the brainwash

and the memory

and the loss of the memory

and the damage done

and the healing

and love is the nurse that comes into the room

tears in her eyes

and tells you “six weeks”

love is the reality that we are all so very temporary that we must cling to the ways

that love

reimagines our lives

rebirths our promise

restarts our engines

edit: don’t rely on anecdote

but love is going out in the snow

zero degrees

scraping ice off a windshield

turning a key

shoveling a walkway

programming the coffee pot late at night

and waking up early to say goodbye

and sometimes love says goodbye because

sometimes love is a tree trunk

weathering a storm

and sometimes love is a cradle

made from a tree trunk that fell in a storm

edit: maybe just don’t

try to write about love