I Believe

“I believe in the immeasurable power of love;

 that true love can endure any circumstance 

and reach across any distance.”

~ Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: 

Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell - Leaving is not enough

"Leaving is not enough; you must

stay gone. train your heart

like a dog. change the locks

even on the house he’s never

visited. you lucky, lucky girl.

you have an apartment

just your size. a bathtub

full of tea. a heart the size

of Arizona, but not nearly

so arid. don’t wish away

your cracked past, your

crooked toes, your problems

are papier mache puppets

you made or bought because the vendor

at the market was so compelling you just

had to have them. you had to have him.

and you did. and now you pull down

the bridge between your houses,

you make him call before

he visits, you take a lover

for granted, you take

a lover who looks at you

like maybe you are magic. make

the first bottle you consume

in this place a relic. place it

on whatever altar you fashion

with a knife and five cranberries.

don’t lose too much weight.

stupid girls are always trying

to disappear as revenge. and you

are not stupid. you loved a man

with more hands than a parade

of beggars, and here you stand. heart

like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.

heart leaking something so strong

they can smell it in the street.”

~ Marty McConnell

Sometimes

“Sometimes the one who is running 

from the Life/Death/Life nature 

insists on thinking of love as a boon only. 

Yet love in its fullest form 

is a series of deaths and rebirths. 

We let go of one phase, 

one aspect of love, 

and enter another. 

Passion dies and is brought back. 

Pain is chased away 

and surfaces another time. 

To love means to embrace 

and at the same time to withstand many endings, 

and many many beginnings - 

all in the same relationship.”

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: 

Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

This Love

“This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - 

it looks for a way of being constructive.

Love is not possessive.

Love is not anxious to impress 

nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas.

Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.

Love is not touchy.

Love does not keep account of evil 

or gloat over the wickedness of other people. 

On the contrary, 

it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.

Love knows no limits to its endurance, 

no end to its trust, 

no fading of its hope; 

it can outlast anything. 

It is, in fact, the one thing that stands 

when all else has fallen.”

~ Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me be a Woman