A Love Manifesto

I wrote this poem back in college I believe my junior year.  So...almost four years ago? Wow, it's crazy how time flies.  I remember I was working at a coffee shop called 'Mocha Joe's' and I wrote this poem on one of my shifts.  I kept going back to the pad after making latte after latte and one shift later...this is what I have.  It remains one of my favorite poems to this day along with 'Success'.  I can not consistently write good poetry, but instead the memorable ones come very sporadically.  I'm not able to predict or admit what spurs them on, but when the pop in my head, I know they're going to be meaningful. (to me at least!)   In this particular one, I try and dig into how we, as humans, manipulate God's love and attempt to define things that really, weren't meant to be defined in human terms in the first place.  Hope it means something to you too.


a simple idea.
a theory meant to erase confusion.
we have, instead, become
unsatisfied. thirsty. hungry
for something more.
no idea, no fraction of reality
can be simplified like this.
no concept can possibly be
controlled. reduced. minimized
into something so
uncomplicated. basic. straightforward.
out of the utter chaos
and selfish absurdity of human
nature and theory,
we have stolen a gift
so pure. so beautiful.
and constructed something
unrecognizable. we have
taken what is not ours
and reformed it into something
“better.”
starving for our legalistic
limitations, we’ve left ourselves
with LESS.
laws and limits.
what if we reverse our thinking?
attempt to escape from our
created refuge.
No. reverse that.
allow this irresistable ferver to flow
through and beyond our
locked gates.
adopt hope.
allow hope to saturate
our dusty arid hearts.
drench us with hope.
out of fear, we’ve constructed
limits of containment, identifying it
as a makeshift refuge.
do we not realize we’ve created a
refuge for a refuge?
we cannot control what
is meant to control us.
let this simple idea
lead us beyond our
created boundaries to the
unknown boundaries of ourselves.
This simplistic idea of hope.
This simplistic thought of love.