Coming Out To Everyone

Congratulations. Your poem is beautiful and I so relate to your story. Here's a poem that helped me through my 'coming out' from a 23 year marriage -- and has inspired my new, committed, lesbian relationship. It's by Marge Piercy.



To Have Without Holding

Marge Piercy



Learning to love differently is hard,

love with the hands wide open, love

with the doors banging on their hinges,

the cupboard unlocked, the wind

roaring and whimpering in the rooms

rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds

that thwack like rubber bands

in an open palm.



It hurts to love wide open

stretching the muscles that feel

as if they are made of wet plaster,

then of blunt knives, then

of sharp knives.



It hurts to thwart the reflexes

of grab, of clutch; to love and let

go again and again. It pesters to remember

the lover who is not in the bed,

to hold back what is owed to the work

that gutters like a candle in a cave

without air, to love consciously,

conscientiously, concretely, constructively.



I can't do it, you say it's killing

me, but you thrive, you glow

on the street like a neon raspberry,

You float and sail, a helium balloon

bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing

on the cold and hot winds of our breath,

as we make and unmake in passionate

diastole and systole the rhythm

of our unbound bonding, to have

and not to hold, to love

with minimized malice, hunger

and anger moment by moment balanced.



Best of luck to you.

That is a Beutiful poem.

This must have taken a lot of courage to do!

Congratulations on following your heart!

Very nice hon! I wish you much luck! I understand your pain and torment, it's not fun.

OMG! This is beautiful, and it's going to open you up to a beautiful, beautiful world of support. I have been tempted to do something similar on FB - cause i hate how everyone thinks i have the perfect life and the perfect family - when i've been tortured inside out for my whole life.



Yay for you. My husband is nowhere near ready for something like this. Sounds like you've got an amazing support system. :)



How have the responses on FB been?