Speaking of boundaries...

Speaking of boundaries...

IMG_3929.jpg

In my last post I wrote about boundaries in parenting. As I reflected more, I realized how important boundaries are in every relationship and wanted to share another piece of writing that I turn to for inspiration.  This one is a poem by Marge Piercy titled To have without holding.  She is one of my favorite poets, mostly because her poetry has such depth and honesty with regard to relationships. 

This poem was especially poignant for me after the painful and disappointing end of a long relationship, when I was learning to love someone differently. This poem expressed my struggle to let go, but also reminded me that learning to love with my hands wide open is always worth the struggle. 

To have without holding                  

Learning to love differently is hard,

love with the hands wide open, love

with the doors banging on their hinges,

the cupboard unlocked, the wind

roaring and whimpering in the rooms

rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds

that thwack like rubber bands

in an open palm.

 

It hurts to love wide open

stretching the muscles that feel

as if they are made of wet plaster,

then of blunt knives, then

of sharp knives.

 

It hurts to thwart the reflexes

of grab, of clutch ; to love and let

go again and again. It pesters to remember

the lover who is not in the bed,

to hold back what is owed to the work

that gutters like a candle in a cave

without air, to love consciously,

conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

 

I can’t do it, you say it’s killing

me, but you thrive, you glow

on the street like a neon raspberry,

You float and sail, a helium balloon

bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing

on the cold and hot winds of our breath,

as we make and unmake in passionate

diastole and systole the rhythm

of our unbound bonding, to have

and not to hold, to love

with minimized malice, hunger

and anger moment by moment balanced.

 

Marge Piercy, "To have without holding" from The Moon is Always Female. Copyright © 1980 by Marge Piercy.