Before You Know What Love Is A poem
Before you know what love really is
you must feel your heart break,
watch your beloved walk out the door
without glancing back to see your face awash with tears.
What you thought was forever,
what you nurtured, guarded, lost yourself in
all vanishes on his, I’m sorry. It’s over.
And for the first time, you bear the true weight
of loss that drowns you in the sea of disbelief.
Before you taste the sweetness of love
you must first swallow
betrayal, accept his mouth
savored another’s, his gaze fell upon her shape
as she swayed to the music across the room
while you stood by, pretended your heart
wasn’t decimated by his selfishness.
You must remember it isn’t you who’s unworthy,
but his hunger to satiate an ancient thirst
inside him, you have no business feeding.
Before you know what love really is,
you must imagine your mother without
the stories she tells herself
to keep the nightmares away.
You must let gratitude and forgiveness
dissolve the scars she left behind
while blinded by her own hurts.
Before you can feel love inside,
you must be undone by the call of the loon —
that long-ago longing that unties the believer in you.
You must hear your child’s cry and know
you would die for them without question
if it meant their survival.
Before you can sit at the feet of love,
you must be willing to tend the wounds
of your ancestors, feel the pain
they couldn’t, wouldn’t.
Only then will you be able to gaze
into the eyes of your children and know
their bodies will not carry past burdens forward.
Before you know love as the only thing you are,
dare to look in the mirror and see your essence
reflected, know it as a gift bestowed
with the first breath you took
and returned with your last exhalation.
You must believe you are worthy of love.
Thank you for reading.
Based on the poem “Kindness” By Naomi Shihab Nye. Gratitude to
for the imaginative prompt.
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