I have never loved another. I am incapable of this task alone.
I have not even loved a cat, a dog, a tree, myself, no one.
There may be channel for love through release, but I don’t have to look around that corner. That corner will come to me, not my business.
It is arrogant to imagine I know what love is.
The ones I am supposed to love by all earthy definition walk by me and at times I feel nothing but annoyance. I might get a painful inner heart squeeze even at the sight of them, but is that love? At times I only see reflection. At times I don’t even see. I am unable to define and perform in accordance with what I think that love is. I love no one, no thing, nothing!
I release this idea of love. I release the word. I release.
And when I do, I am just here.
I can get still enough to stop doing what I think love should look like.
I’m left with only the senses, not the thought.
I am free to not love ever again as me.
Yet I am still here;
nothing has changed visibly,
though perhaps I sit up more as the weight of performance is taken off my back.
Mirrors mirrors on all sides
you magnify what is not
and let me simply be here.
Life as Improv 
Even with our lovers and (so-called) loved ones there are our social displays, and that is how we communicate is it not? Trying to communicate a personal love to another itself is all but impossible, and it seems our eyes are often the best portal. It is treacherous to attempt to ascertain the degree of love another may have for us by their deeds alone, and as you suggest, there is no saying what love looks like; there is only the look of love itself.
To say I do not know love, is to say contrarily that I do, because I cannot deny something I do not understand; so in my denying I reveal both my knowing and my understanding. H ❤
Ever since this post, the false ideas are not going gently into that good night – the cheesiest love songs are relentlessly looping in my head: “I want to know what Love is.” ugh. Here is my social display attempt to express gratitude for your knowing and understanding which provide a padded room for my insanity. :o)
What an interesting and rare reflection! Yes, we don’t know what love is. Love is our very core, but we still don’t know what love is.
There are so many definitions superimposed, a different one for each, according to the level of his or her understanding and development.
I hope love will reveal itself in the absence of any ‘shoulds’.
A rush of awareness came that felt like a huge relief of ‘shoulds’ you are right. The lightbulb moment released the ideas for the “doing” of love and allowed space for the being of love. I feel enormous gratitude with your words of understanding posted here, Karin
Language often confounds, doesn’t it? (sigh)
mmmmmmmmmm
Oh this is beautiful. The more you try, and the more you behave the way think love behaviour should look like, the worse it gets. I know from bitter experience and many failed relationships. But I do find that in those moments when ‘me’ has been stilled, then something that the mind labels love arises spontaneously, and it has no definition and no boundaries, and nothing at all to say.
Alison. With love 🙂
You said it, exactly, Alison. love arising without my doing back atcha. 🙂
I’ve been sitting with this post since I saw it, mainly because I have felt the love of your friendship so keenly. In my arrogance, I would say that I do know what love is, not from how I’ve *expressed* it but from how I’ve *received* it: a decision to be present in witness and acceptance of the other. Being human, of course, I perform love imperfectly. And as someone seeking to dwell in Reality, I accept and sit in the present with imperfection, and in that way, I teach myself to love that imperfection too. That is, perhaps even my imperfection becomes perfect. Or not. :~)
Beautiful Michael! The truth of your words are received here 😉 I put some things out on the curb, spring cleaning in the fall, I think: some outworn ideas of obligation, some ratty old caps of responsibility to others, some dusty, and empty cups of words. I think I’ve made some space for a fresh and newborn wellspring – me bum is growing roots as I sit! Embracing the imperfection that gifts me such reminders.
i’m happy for your courage
to still be
with it
as i can
understand
the challenge
to love
what seems
unlovable.
seems and shoulds
are coming
apart at
the seams,
around here.
i’m grateful for
your flexible
and encouraging
words
I cannot lie and say I have no idea what you are talking about, though I have been afraid of love my whole damned life. Maybe I have not completely understood the purpose of its existance, but so far it has only triggered agonizing pain and suffering. I have indeed felt love towards another, but it always ends the same way, which leads to me asking myself if love is really worth it. Still I find friendship I have been longing for in you and your posts, so thank you.
Refreshing, you! The “I Can’t Love” post seems looking back to be trying to describe a death of a certain type of love – and a momentary recognition of this little death. I also think I was imagining that love wells up from a source not of my own making – that I am just a vessel through which it flows, if I am open to such a flow. Maybe, maybe not. The vacation from any idea of love has been very delicious, though, this freedom from pressure to feel any sort of way out of obligation. Friendship, anonymity, words diving beneath surface colors that you have on tap — delicious, too!
sometimes love causes more pain than to never love
Wow! Just be. It’s enough.
Oh yes. 🙂