Ever After

EVER AFTER

I will not, cannot, love you for some “reason”,

Just a momentary season,

For a minute, or an instant,

Or a solitary in-tent,

I must love you past all heartaches,

Past all tortured conversations,

Past all weary speculations,

Beyond fearful hesitations,

Or the petty persecutions of electric elocution,

I must love you

With a mindful meditation,

And a willful integration

Of our contradicting natures

I don’t need it to be easy, superficial, skimming, breezy,

I need love that keeps on asking,

Keeps on proving, keeps on moving,

Past the walls of my defenses,

Closer to the core of being,

I need love that keeps on seeing,

Keeps on being, keeps believing,

Minimizing motivations,

Pressing on to destinations,

Purified by conflagrations,

Sanctified by pure sensations.

I wrote this eighteen years ago after a BIG fight I had with my husband Daniel. I was mad and trying to look forward…where did I want to be?…in a month?…in a year?…in a decade?… And then I wrote this piece… It sang its way out of my head and onto a piece of paper. I can’t remember what the argument was about but I periodically would read it again and again over the years. I renamed it Valentine for Charisiel (his magickal name). And I realized it was a spell… A mantra…a visualization… A prayer to bring me back to my heart and stay on the path that I set for myself. 

~Sherree Bailey