The Only Love

The only love I think I’ve ever known

Is the one that my family has always shown

A love I saw as more of a requirement.

Not a love by choice, but rather by assignment.

We know how to love based on the love we were given,

Some use that to their advantage as ammunition.

These are the ones that give less than they take.

The ones with the emptiness in the words of the promises they make.

The ones who make it hard to love after the hurt.

Leaving you in a pile, crumbled and broken in the dirt

Left with scars where no one can see.

Still learning to love them by letting them be.

Part of the search includes the fails,

Training you how to not go off the rails…

if god forbid this one doesn’t work out.

Love is truly a precarious thing

The hurt and the joy it can simultaneously bring

Though I hope that one day you find a love like none other

A love that gives you new light and a passion that’s rediscovered.

The little girl within me clings on to that hope

Hope for a love so fanatical, yet real

Hope that is slipping out of my hands like a rope.

I know that the hope will slowly come back.

The light that shines ever so slightly through the cracks.

Loving yourself is the first thing to learn,

Before absorbing the external love that you’ll earn.

Nobody can break you, or leave you a mess

Now that this time you didn’t start out with less.

Then someone will come along one day

Who says all the things you’ve wanted someone to say,

Who never makes you feel like you’re in the way,

Who actually loves you and chooses to stay.

And that little girl that used to be you,

Would be oh so proud, she’d be over the moon.

That little girl from the years of the past

Has been with you through all of your loves; from your very first, to your last.

So live for her, and continue to try,

Because love is most known for catching you by surprise.

- Ray