To the brave ones who love,
Don't you ever dare apologize
For choosing a creation so clumsy
You knew it would drop your heart on its first beat

Not for the moments you chose
To let their pride scratch your heart’s surface
Until they have dug deep enough
Tears have sprung up from its depths

Not for the moments you decided to say it out loud
Hoping that maybe, just maybe,
The winds would listen and whisper it back to him
When all he sees are the marks loving has left him with

Not for thea moments you gave a little too much
That the absence of your selfishness has attracted
all your broken little pieces back into place
That it terrified them all

To the brave ones who love,
Don’t you ever dare apologize
As if the ability I have given you
Has made you a mistake

Child, your capability to love is not a defect
You must hide under your sleeves
And yes, it hurts, it will hurt most of the time
To feel so much and give so much yet receive only pity

But love,
Love still
Love when they give love
Love before they give love
Love when you wish to do so
Love when you are blinded by hate
Love when the world is filled
And love when the world has forgotten

Give it even when surrender has escaped from the lips of your own self
Because I will be there, I will be there when they have sacrificed your heart into the flames of their own greed
I will gather every last bit of the ashes and cup it so dearly
That I may breathe life into this pile they have left for the wind to blow away

And in the times you have given so much, too much,
You stare at a fogged up mirror
And the love that you seek to receive has been blurred
Remember my nail-pierced hands that have wiped the mirror clean

Because this love that I have designed for you to receive and give away
Is not a weakness to be denied to avoid being crucified as I was
Because yes, love brought me death, but child do remember
That it was also love that exhaled life back into my scarred torn up self three days later

This love that I have sewn into the thread of your identity is a love so transcendent
It has spilled into the fields and skies and have caused them to love in the way they know how
The sun in spreading its arms enveloping you with its warmth
The trees in the sacrifice of their leaves in the hopes that just one would land on your palms
And of men- of faint smiles, of thank you's, of pats in the back, of poems whose letters your face it creates

So love
Love with every beat of your taped up collapsing heart
I will make it new everyday
Love with the touch of your cut up fingers
I will close them up with my nail pierced hands
Because I am love and I am with you

To the brave ones who love,
Don't you ever ever dare apologize
For choosing a creation so clumsy
You knew it would drop your heart on its first beat

Because I never did.