Is Love Life… or a Sentence? (The Infinite Faces of Love) > Likes and Comments
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Love is designed to heal in the same way that the gym is designed to relax: technically it is possible, but it often traumatizes.Devotion turns into self-destruction the moment your boundaries become “excessive.”
Can love be real if it mostly feels like pain? Sure. Just like food poisoning. The question is, will you continue to call it dinner?
You have a lot of examples in your collection in which love is both a blessing and a curse, and I'm collecting evidence. When will your second book of poetry be released?
What a fascinating question. I’ve been married for more than fifty years, so I’ve seen love wear many faces. The first infatuation was intense and powerful, almost overwhelming — but the years that followed brought trials, arguments, misunderstandings, and learning. Lots of learning.Now, growing old together, that first spark is still there, but it’s been reinforced by time, patience, forgiveness, and shared history. Love hasn’t just healed or tested us — it’s done both, repeatedly.
Thank you for opening such a rich discussion.
James wrote: "What a fascinating question. I’ve been married for more than fifty years, so I’ve seen love wear many faces. The first infatuation was intense and powerful, almost overwhelming — but the years that..."Thank you for sharing this—there’s so much honesty (and hope) in it. The way you put it—love both healing and testing, repeatedly—feels truer than any single definition.
Here’s what I keep wondering: how do you tell the difference between a relationship that’s being tested (and can grow) and one that’s simply harmful (and asks you to endure)? In your experience, what was the clearest sign that the hard years were still “building,” not breaking?
Love heals the heart, then measures what remains,
Not just in sunshine, but in weathered rains.
If trials make us truer—not erased—
Then love is both the fire and what we’ve faced.
Lina wrote: "Love is designed to heal in the same way that the gym is designed to relax: technically it is possible, but it often traumatizes.Devotion turns into self-destruction the moment your boundaries bec..."
I’m officially accepting your “evidence collection” as a legitimate research project.
And yes—when your boundaries start getting labeled “excessive,” that’s usually the moment love quietly changes masks.
Opium Dreams (Book 2 in The Infinite Faces of Love) is in the works right now. I’m finishing edits/layout, and I’m aiming for an early release—I'll post the exact date here as soon as it’s locked in.
If you’d like, I can also share a short excerpt when it’s ready—just enough to add one more exhibit to your case.
Gemma wrote: "Lina wrote: "Love is designed to heal in the same way that the gym is designed to relax: technically it is possible, but it often traumatizes.Devotion turns into self-destruction the moment your b..."
An opium dream... That sounds truly decadent. I won't ask for details, I know all writers are superstitious. But I would like something special... something truly opium-like. I haven't had anything like that in my collection of love emotions yet.
Love feels like a scam when:you give more than you receive.
You attach deeply and the other person doesn’t.
Promises don’t turn into consistency.
Chemistry is sold as destiny.
In those moments, love looks like false advertising.
But here’s the distinction I stand by:
Romantic fantasy is often a scam.
Love itself isn’t.
So it depends what kind of Love relations we are talking about.
Tanushree wrote: "Love feels like a scam when:you give more than you receive.
You attach deeply and the other person doesn’t.
Promises don’t turn into consistency.
Chemistry is sold as destiny.
In those moments..."
I like this distinction.
A lot of what gets marketed as love is really a bundle deal: chemistry + hope + a few pretty promises — and then the “product” never ships.
Real love isn’t false advertising. It’s consistency, consent, and care that still shows up when the dopamine clocked out.
If it’s only intense when it’s convenient, it’s not love — it’s entertainment.
I agree. What feels like a scam is often the story we’re sold — not love itself. Love becomes real when it turns into steady action, not just chemistry and promises.
Gemma wrote: "Here’s what I keep wondering: how do you tell the difference between a relationship that’s being tested (and can grow) and one that’s simply harmful (and asks you to endure)? In your experience, what was the clearest sign that the hard years were still “building,” not breaking?"That’s a hard question, and I don’t think there’s ever a neat answer. During the worst times, I found myself asking what is wrong with me rather than what is wrong with my partner. If I was causing her pain, sadness, or anger, then I had to ask what I’d done — where I’d failed her. Saying sorry is often the hardest word, but it’s also the most necessary.
After one particularly bad argument, when we’d finally made up, she said something that’s stayed with me ever since: “Love me most when I deserve it the least.” That, for me, was the difference between something that was 'building' rather than 'breaking'. Hard years can be places of growth if both people are willing to look inward, not just outward.
I do think people often rush into relationships too quickly now. Love can absolutely be a scam — Tanushree isn’t wrong — but that doesn’t mean it always is. Sometimes it simply takes time to find the right person. When I first saw my partner, I remember thinking, There she is, as if we already knew each other from a previous life. I’m not religious, but I do believe our purpose here is to grow — towards compassion, patience, and understanding, much like the state of being taught by Buddha and others like him.
That, at least, has been my experience.
James wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Here’s what I keep wondering: how do you tell the difference between a relationship that’s being tested (and can grow) and one that’s simply harmful (and asks you to endure)? In your ..."Thank you for such a thoughtful, honest reply — and that line (“Love me most when I deserve it the least”) really does stay with you.
I’d only add one nuance: the habit of asking “What’s wrong with me?” can be growth… or it can be training yourself to carry the whole relationship on your back. The difference, for me, is reciprocity.
Hard years can build something when both people do the inward work — and when “I’m sorry” is followed by changed patterns, not just a reset button.
So here’s my question (genuine curiosity):
How did you tell the difference between compassion and self-erasure in those worst seasons? What was the sign that told you: this is building, not breaking?
Tanushree wrote: "Love is a scam😀"Tanushree, fair — but I’d tweak it:
Love isn’t the scam.
The sales pitch is.
Chemistry gets marketed as destiny, promises as proof, and attention as commitment. That’s where people get “scammed.”
So here’s a quick follow-up:
What part felt like the scam for you — the person, or the story you were sold?
Lina wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Lina wrote: "Love is designed to heal in the same way that the gym is designed to relax: technically it is possible, but it often traumatizes.Devotion turns into self-destruction the..."
Lina — I love that line. It’s painfully accurate.
And yes… “opium” isn’t a plot, it’s a state: when love stops being oxygen and becomes incense — sweet, thick, and slightly dangerous.
Here’s a tiny opium-tinged fragment (just a breath, not the whole dream):
Love came like velvet smoke: it warmed my skin—then stayed,
It filled my mouth with silence; every word mislaid.
Not pain. Not peace. Just something in-between, untrue—
A lovely anesthesia, lowering me through
But here’s the hook I’m curious about:
What would you call the moment devotion crosses the line — the first small sign?
Is it when you start shrinking, or when you stop expecting reciprocity?
Gemma wrote: "Lina wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Lina wrote: "Love is designed to heal in the same way that the gym is designed to relax: technically it is possible, but it often traumatizes.Devotion turns into self-de..."
Beautiful poems, thank you! It's a complex question... In my opinion, waiting for reciprocity is already a kind of psychological problem of dependence. It seems to me that this is the first sign that something is wrong with me. You immediately feel a boundary. There is no free flow of emotions, thoughts, or energy.
James wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Here’s what I keep wondering: how do you tell the difference between a relationship that’s being tested (and can grow) and one that’s simply harmful (and asks you to endure)? In your ..."Well, I would phrase it a little differently. A kindred spirit isn't someone who agrees with you on everything, but rather someone you recognize as your own from the very beginning. You can argue, you can even part ways at times, but you develop in the same direction, learning from each other.
Stories told or Stories sold....and the stories we sell..... all come in absolutes and there is no absolute in love😊
Tanushree wrote: "Stories told or Stories sold....and the stories we sell..... all come in absolutes and there is no absolute in love😊"Beautifully said — stories told vs. stories sold.
What gets “sold” to us is usually packaged in absolutes: the One, the Forever, the perfect match, the perfect proof. But love doesn’t live in absolutes — it lives in real people, and real people are not templates.
Tolstoy had that blunt, almost clinical clarity: there are as many kinds of love as there are minds. I’d add — as many kinds as there are levels of freedom.
A self-sufficient person tends to love with open hands. A dependent one turns love into a cage — first for themselves, then for the person they claim to love.
Even the Greeks refused the “one-word-fits-all” idea and split love into different forms — because one label can’t cover everything.
So I’m curious (and I think this is the real question):
Which kind of love matters most to you right now — and what does it look like in actions, not poetry?
Well, certainly I won't refer to any kind of romantic love. If there is any form of love that's pristine , not a sentence but life itself....then it is devotion...be it to the god ...or a devoted mother ...but as writer Shankar says, the purest kind of love is found when a father loves his daughter....an absolute love perhaps.....even a mother expects something when she does for her son , but a father's love for the daughter is unconditional...something we see, we feel ...often write about but never discuss.
Gemma wrote: "So here’s my question (genuine curiosity):How did you tell the difference between compassion and self-erasure in those worst seasons? What was the sign that told you: this is building, not breaking?"
Many years ago, I watched a film called 'Love Story'. There was a very corny line in it that went, 'Love means never having to say you're sorry.' What a load of codswallop.
Compassion becomes self-erasure when you’re the only one changing, apologising, or growing.
Compassion remains healthy when your partner is also doing the work — not perfectly, but visibly.
The clearest sign it’s 'building' rather than 'breaking' is reciprocity over time, not intensity in the moment.
So, does it help to break up and start again with someone new?
People sometimes leave because they think love shouldn’t hurt. But love does hurt — what matters is whether the pain leads to understanding and change, or whether it simply repeats.
Starting again with someone new can feel easier because hope resets the counter. But hope alone isn’t growth. Growth shows up later, when things are hard again — and they always are.
Hi everyone :)What a beautiful discussion...
James, you wife said what many of us would agree with:
"People need loving the most when they deserve it the least".
John Harrigan
As for when is compassion healthy , and when its not, one of my patients who was married for decades shared this:
" If you want to have a life long relationship, there will be YEARS when one of you is 100% and another one is 0%, or 10/90, or 50/50.. every possible combination will occur".
My personal opinion? I find a metaphor of rainbow apt and useful. Red is for passion, orange is you being artful, green is for jealousy and envy, blue is for sadness, purple is for betrayal or break up...in a life long love, there is more than one rainbow though! and amongst 1/3 mln people I've met (my patients) I saw many examples of beautiful, enduring, "true love". There is only one way to get there- never give up on each other.
Happy loving!
:))
Jasmine
Thank you, Jasmine — that’s beautifully put. I love the rainbow metaphor, and the reminder that long relationships pass through every possible combination of colours. Wise words.
Dr. wrote: "Hi everyone :)What a beautiful discussion...
James, you wife said what many of us would agree with:
"People need loving the most when they deserve it the least".
John Harrigan
As for when is ..."
That’s an interesting perspective — especially coming from someone with a clinical background.
From what I’ve observed, the line between love and attachment often gets blurred. What people call “deep love” is sometimes closer to dependency: fear of loss, identity fusion, or emotional regulation outsourced to another person.
I’m curious about your view as a doctor:
in your experience, when does love stop being a bond and start becoming a dependency?
Is it more about intensity, loss of autonomy, or the inability to self-soothe without the other person?
And perhaps the harder question:
can dependency ever transform into love — or is it a different structure altogether?
Gemma wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Hi everyone :)What a beautiful discussion...
James, you wife said what many of us would agree with:
"People need loving the most when they deserve it the least".
John Harrigan
As ..."
Dear Gemma,
Thank you for your questions; they are not at all difficult :)
Say a woman A could was in a relationship with man B , then man C , lastly, man D.
The emotional dance between them is a different proportion of suffering and pleasure (differing for AB, AC, AD) ; within each relationship, the proportion will change over the years, as the dancers are adjusting to each other (whilst maintaining their unique essences as human beings).
Which of AB, AC or AD is a true love? This entirely depends on the ability of adjust to each other (whilst staying yourself).
By adjustment I don't mean just " staying together without love"; always- with love.
Morals are relative, and so is the definition of "dependency"; AB might enjoy spending 99% of their time together, whilst within AD it feels as suffocating etc.
Unhealthy relationships are those where maintaining one's unique identity feels impossible , and could lead to mental illness; the metaphor might be one dancer being 3 times larger than the other :)
Jasmine
Dr. wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Hi everyone :)What a beautiful discussion...
James, you wife said what many of us would agree with:
"People need loving the most when they deserve it the least".
John..."
Jasmine, I admire the AB/AC/AD algebra — but my heart refuses to do math. 🙂
I do like the “dance” metaphor, and I agree that identity is the non-negotiable. At the same time, I’d argue love isn’t really a medical object — it’s closer to something metaphysical: meaning, choice, inner freedom, the kind of bond that can’t be fully measured in proportions.
And this is where the thread gets interesting: adjustment can mean two very different things. Sometimes it’s mutual growth. Sometimes it’s a slow self-editing process where one person becomes smaller… and calls it “love” because the relationship survived.
So when you say “always with love” — what do you mean in practice?
Would you call it love if:
there is warmth and devotion, but one partner walks on eggshells?
there is loyalty, but the relationship runs on fear of abandonment?
there is “99% togetherness”, but one person can’t tolerate solitude?
In other words, what’s your simplest distinction between love and dependency — not as a definition, but as a lived signal?
Gemma wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Hi everyone :)What a beautiful discussion...
James, you wife said what many of us would agree with:
"People need loving the most when they deserve it the l..."
Hi Gemma :)
Oh, I dont think of love as " medical" at all, its the essence of metaphysics!
As for simple answer, it took me years to conceive and write my first book- Love, demystified; love is a complex subject.
The definition of dependency, Gemma, who defines it? Only people within the relationship are qualified to make this judgement :), for each person's definition of the latter is unique.
Jasmine
Dr. wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Hi everyone :)What a beautiful discussion...
James, you wife said what many of us would agree with:
"People need loving the most when they de..."
That's interesting) I'm reading your answers and I'm surprised by how vague they are in response to specific questions. You're speaking in generalities and haven't once expressed your own perspective on the matter.
Dr. wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Hi everyone :)What a beautiful discussion...
James, you wife said what many of us would agree with:
"People need loving the most when they de..."
Jasmine, I actually agree with you on one key point — love is metaphysical, not medical. And that’s precisely why I keep hesitating when everything gets reduced to definitions that only exist inside a relationship.
If dependency can only be defined by the people inside it, then by that logic, no one is ever dependent — because dependency, by nature, is often invisible from within. We rarely diagnose our own cages while we’re still living in them.
What intrigues me isn’t who has the right to define love, but what love does to the self over time.
Does it expand your inner world — or slowly narrow it?
Do you become more yourself — or more manageable?
Do you gain freedom — or justify its loss as devotion?
Perhaps the most revealing signal isn’t intensity or duration, but this simple question:
After years of loving — do you feel more alive, or merely more adapted?
I’m curious how others here would answer that — not as theory, but as lived experience.
Reading through this thread, I keep noticing how easily love gets framed as something to endure, decode, or optimize — as if it were a system that only works if we adjust ourselves correctly.What gets lost there is something very simple and very human.
Love isn’t proven by how much you can tolerate.
It’s revealed by what you’re allowed to remain.
The moment love requires you to become smaller, quieter, less yourself — not temporarily, but structurally — something has already shifted.
That’s why I’m wary of definitions that rely only on endurance, proportions, or moral ideals like “never giving up.”
Persistence alone isn’t love.
Survival isn’t devotion.
For me, the clearest signal is freedom:
Do you feel more alive in this bond — or more managed?
More present — or more careful?
Love doesn’t need absolutes.
It needs space.
I’m curious how others here sense that difference — not in theory, but in lived experience.
Gemma wrote: "Reading through this thread, I keep noticing how easily love gets framed as something to endure, decode, or optimize — as if it were a system that only works if we adjust ourselves correctly.What..."
Dear Gemma,
I would like to share with you the quote I love, by Kahlil Gibran:
"When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth..."
You are asking about " lived experience", well, my own lived experience and that of many people I know well, echo what Kahlil says :)
Good night,
Jasmine
I’m enjoying this thread immensely, but I feel obliged to confess something from lived experience: sometimes love isn’t metaphysics, dependency, or a sacred dance of souls — it’s two people arguing about how to load the dishwasher.And yet… somehow, that seems to matter just as much.
If, after the argument, you’re still willing to make the other a cup of tea — and they’re still willing to drink it — then maybe love is alive and well, even without algebra, rainbows, or Kahlil Gibran watching sternly from the corner.
Gibran is breathtaking — but I think his imagery is also where people get misled.Poetry can describe love as “wounding” and “pruning” — and that can be true in the sense of ego, illusions, old defenses breaking.
The problem starts when we quietly translate that metaphor into a moral permission slip for real harm.
Not every wound is growth. Not every “pruning” is love. Sometimes it’s just damage with a beautiful caption.
For me, the lived-experience question is this: what kind of pain are we talking about?
– the pain of honesty, accountability, and change?
– or the pain of fear, walking on eggshells, and shrinking to keep peace?
One expands your inner freedom. The other steadily erodes it.
So I’m curious (for anyone): what’s your simplest litmus test — the one sign that the “sword” is metaphorical (ego) rather than literal (harm)?
James wrote: "I’m enjoying this thread immensely, but I feel obliged to confess something from lived experience: sometimes love isn’t metaphysics, dependency, or a sacred dance of souls — it’s two people arguing..."This might be the most honest definition of love in the whole thread.
Because the dishwasher argument is where the “big words” either become real… or collapse.
The tea test is perfect: not the absence of conflict, but the presence of goodwill after it.
Now I’m curious (genuinely): what’s your equivalent of the “cup of tea” in your house — the small act that quietly says, “We’re still on the same side”?
Hi Gemma and James :)Well, isn't it lovely how this potentially tragic and grave subject of love (!) :)) turned into humorous??
On the subject of cups of tea and dishwashers, how about this thought:
"What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives acts and experiences otherwise than we do?"
-Friedrich Nietzsche
A man I love never rinses the plates and cutlery after he washed them with very soapy water (I always do), and he cuts our little one's hair right over the fluffy rug in the bathroom (why?? I would have just removed it first!), etc etc; but his puzzled smile is so very earnest " darling I'm afraid this rug now needs to be washed" and I kiss his nose and I wash the rug.. and yesterday we climbed a small mountain, him- fully dressed in sports gear; me- pretty dress, Italian flowered stockings and the wellies...
...for all those little things is how his brain works, and how my brain works, and trying to change a person you love is:
-silly
-unkind
-never works
but this is only my opinion :))
Jasmine
P.S. And yes, James, cup of tea works for us, too :)
Gemma wrote: "Gibran is breathtaking — but I think his imagery is also where people get misled.Poetry can describe love as “wounding” and “pruning” — and that can be true in the sense of ego, illusions, old def..."
Hi Gemma,
I'm afraid the "sword" is often both.. and yes walking on eggshells does feel awful- but only you can decide if its a temporary problem you are able to live through, for you can definitely see light at the end of the tunnel.. or its killing your soul to a degree that you got to stop it and move on :)
We sometimes forget that no one has an unlimited capacity to suffer- we all have a breaking point- and one hopes most of us will avoid it.
Jasmine
There’s a difference between a sword that cuts onceand a blade you’re asked to sleep beside every night.
Walking on eggshells isn’t a trial of love —
it’s a signal.
Sometimes it’s temporary, yes.
And sometimes it’s not a tunnel at all, but a room with no exits
where hope is used as furniture.
We talk a lot about endurance,
less about cost.
No one has an infinite capacity to suffer —
but many are taught to call that suffering “growth,”
right up until the soul quietly resigns.
So perhaps the real question isn’t
Can I survive this?
but
Who do I become if I do?
Gemma wrote: "There’s a difference between a sword that cuts onceand a blade you’re asked to sleep beside every night.
Walking on eggshells isn’t a trial of love —
it’s a signal.
Sometimes it’s temporary, yes...."
I agree 1000 times!!! At some point, love stops needing metaphors.
If it can't withstand an ordinary Tuesday evening, shared household chores, and mild irritation, no quotes will save it.
Gemma wrote: "There’s a difference between a sword that cuts onceand a blade you’re asked to sleep beside every night.
Walking on eggshells isn’t a trial of love —
it’s a signal.
Sometimes it’s temporary, yes...."
Dear Gemma,
Thank you for this poetic dialogue :) I kind of feel I want to give you a hug as you seem to need it... hugs!! ( ) ( ) ( )
those are all valid questions, and each human being has to answer them for himself, I feel. Its not just about an intimate relationship- you might find yourself in a neighbourhood/work environment that feel like a "suffocating room with no exits".. whether to leave that room or not, and when to leave it, sometimes is hard to decide.
Those of us who make those decisions well, are more likely to have made a success of their lives :)
And another point here... its not just about "you". When deciding if to stay within a difficult environment, we really ought to consider our future children (and yet we so rarely do!); if I make a choice to " hang in there", what would it be like for my child to be born into, and live inside, this very same environment??
Jasmine
Reading through the thread, I notice how easily discussions about love drift into advice, rescue metaphors, or life coaching.For me, this space is less about guidance and more about observation.
Love isn’t something to manage correctly or endure wisely — it’s something we notice, name, and sometimes leave unnamed.
I’m interested in experiences, images, contradictions — not conclusions.
Let’s keep it there.
Gemma wrote: "Reading through the thread, I notice how easily discussions about love drift into advice, rescue metaphors, or life coaching.For me, this space is less about guidance and more about observation.
L..."
My first husband looked perfect from the outside — attractive, polished, “top-tier.” But after two years and two children, I saw the truth: the marriage was making me smaller. I wasn’t becoming — I was deteriorating.
When I asked for a divorce, I got threats and attempts at violence. I took my kids and left.
I never regretted it. The children were fine — he’d barely been present anyway.
Later I met a man who felt like growth, not gravity. We argued, sure — but disagreement never became domination. No “pick a side.” No emotional blackmail.
That’s how I define true love now: closeness without captivity. Understanding without control. Two whole people, not one person slowly disappearing.
Gemma wrote: "I’m interested in experiences, images, contradictions — not conclusions. Let’s keep it there."I like the idea of staying with contradictions rather than rushing toward conclusions. It makes me curious what you hope these experiences and images will do next. Are they seeds for more poems, or is the act of holding them — unresolved — the point in itself?
Your posts also stirred a few questions that feel gloriously unanswerable: is love something we recognise, or something we choose to practise? Do we change through love — or does love simply reveal who we already were? And can two people truly grow together, or do they mostly grow alongside each other?
I also want to say a quiet thank you to Lina for sharing her story — it was moving and very generously told.
James wrote: "Gemma wrote: "I’m interested in experiences, images, contradictions — not conclusions. Let’s keep it there."I like the idea of staying with contradictions rather than rushing toward conclusions. I..."
Thank you for this — it’s a rare kind of comment, the kind that doesn’t try to close the question, but knows how to stay with it.
About the poems first.
For me, poems that grow out of lived experience rarely arrive immediately. When something is deeply personal — separation, cooling, the quiet realization that two paths are no longer aligned — it needs to be lived through first. Dragging another person toward “growth” against their will feels like a kind of violence; sometimes the most honest act is recognising that timing, direction, or desire simply differ. Unreturned love, too, asks for distance before language.
Those experiences need time — to be endured, understood, and only then distilled. I write them later, with a cooler mind and a steadier heart. What eventually becomes a poem (or a song) is already the essence — the residue after emotion has settled.
But when I respond to beauty in someone else’s work, or to another person’s story — especially when it resonates with both my own experience and theirs — poems can arrive almost instantly. In that case, language isn’t excavation; it’s recognition. So for me, published poems are never raw material. They’re the quintessence.
As for love itself — I don’t think it’s something we consciously choose. Love either happens, or it doesn’t. What we do choose begins after that — inside the experience, not before it.
That’s where responsibility enters: whether we refuse to abandon ourselves or erase the other; whether we walk together through joy, conflict, misunderstanding, reconciliation — learning to accept rather than remake. Or whether we dissolve into another person and call that devotion, while slowly harming both.
I do believe all paths — even the painful ones — are meant to lead us toward clarity: self-worth, self-respect, and therefore a healthier capacity to love another without possession or fear.
Negative experiences are not failures; they are revelations. They show us who we were, and who we are becoming — if we’re willing to reflect rather than repeat. And yes, if we work on ourselves, we change. Sometimes together. Sometimes alongside each other. Those are different kinds of growth — and both are real.
Perhaps we’re given so many forms and qualities of love precisely so we can learn. Learn about freedom. About limits. About ourselves. And, occasionally… so we can write poems.
Thank you, Gemma, for such a thoughtful response. I admire the clarity and care with which you describe your relationship to language and poetry — though I’ll admit poetry often goes over my head. I tend to trip over the words rather than float on them.My own experience of love has been far less distillable. Real life, at least in our case, has been messy, noisy, sometimes explosive, and resistant to tidy interpretation. I have Asperger’s, my wife has a very forceful personality, and between us we’ve generated enough raw material for a book most people wouldn’t believe — and yet, somehow, we’re still standing side by side decades later.
That’s why I sometimes struggle with frameworks, metaphors, and philosophical sorting systems. When you’re actually living it, feelings don’t arrive labelled, sequenced, or filed away neatly. They collide. They contradict each other. Love and exhaustion, loyalty and fury, tenderness and despair can all turn up on the same afternoon.
So I suppose my lingering question is this: is it really possible — or even useful — to categorise love into clean concepts? Or is love something that only ever makes full sense inside the chaos of living it?
Some of us don’t analyse love.
We survive it.
And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we grow anyway.
James wrote: "Thank you, Gemma, for such a thoughtful response. I admire the clarity and care with which you describe your relationship to language and poetry — though I’ll admit poetry often goes over my head. ..."Dear James,
I wholeheartedly agree with your every word :) I can relate for I have experienced it all too... and fluctuating from despair to the most ethereal feelings of love (all within one afternoon (!)) is one of the most bewildering human experiences, wouldn't you agree??
... and reading-reading-reading books of love, and, later on, writing them yourself- is liberating- exciting yet soothing- and, hopefully, helpful for others, which completes the circle :)
I actually wonder if your heart (at the subconscious level) already knows the answers to all of your questions- you just need to raise them up, to the level of conscious knowledge, for then what your heart feels, the brain will recognise as a thought :).. but only if you want to :)
Jasmine
Dear Jasmine,Yes, I do agree — it is bewildering. I’ve come to think that love itself is always there, in all of us, in bucket loads. What really needs the work is everything that gets in the way of it: the pain, the misunderstandings, the old wounds and habits we carry around.
Those trials don’t feel like punishment to me, more like lessons — sometimes repeated until we finally learn what they’re trying to teach us. If we can manage that, love seems to flow quite naturally again.
Warm regards,
James
James wrote: "Dear Jasmine,Yes, I do agree — it is bewildering. I’ve come to think that love itself is always there, in all of us, in bucket loads. What really needs the work is everything that gets in the way..."
Hi James,
Its a beautiful thought- thank you for sharing :)
Jasmine
I’d love to open a poetry discussion around my series The Infinite Faces of Love.
The question that keeps returning in these poems is simple—but not easy:
Is love life… or is it a sentence?
Something that gives us breath—or something we’re made to endure.
I’m also currently working on Book 2, titled Opium Dreams—a darker, more dreamlike continuation that leans into obsession, tenderness, dependency, and the ways we romanticize what harms us.
If you feel like jumping in, I’d genuinely love your take:
Do you believe love is meant to heal, or to test us?
Where’s the line between devotion and self-erasure?
Can love be real if it mostly feels like pain?
What poems (yours or others’) capture love as both blessing and curse?
Drop a thought, a quote, or even a single line—short answers welcome.
Let’s make this a living thread.