I am the one who can breathe underwater

I am the one who can breathe underwater


Beautiful music in last night’s dream
with lyrics so wild
my soul flowed again:
Don’t barter for my soul
with your needs
and call it love.

Displaced from the mind
by personal and collective conditioning,
I dive deeper
into the dark lake
of the unknown,
a gypsy in teal waters of feeling.

Love is not words.
Love is not a promise
to build a life where there will be enough
along a damned-up steam.
Love is not bribing each other
to stay together.

Love is not a hook,
a descending feeble white line,
the clawing pleasures of the ego,
attempting to latch
into the heart,
the desire to belong.

When you were mine
I needed to steal your love.
Now you are free,
and my heart is
like a wellspring.
I wonder if I ever knew you.

Letting go of language,
letting go of waiting,
letting go of the visions of happiness
that hurt, because they weren’t real.
Without the longing to be loved,
I can easily love you.

Of course I know what love is.
Everybody does!
I love you when I notice you, instead of
bartering for your soul
with my needs
and calling it love.

Laughing now, I remember
calling you baby
so you would touch me.
We were dealing in addictions,
bonding over the future
instead of eating the ripe fruit of now.

When there are no expectations,
there is nothing to loose.
I exchange my love for this moment,
vulnerable and new.
Now that what I feared has happened,
I know you better than ever before.

Don’t try to be consistent.
That's the ego’s strategy,
piling on heavy investments of
I love you’s,
on the lonely raft
upon the surface.

The idea of the other
is the booby trap of love.
I will never know you
if I expect you to stay the same.
See me change
or someone else will.

I don’t mean to threaten you.
I simply don’t want to choose
between life and love,
between being myself
and sharing myself.
I don't want to force you to.

I am the one who can breathe underwater.
I am the mysterious heart, dancing,
paradoxical and pure.
Like mixing colors,
the soul is meant to change
into what it delights in.

Releasing our fool’s gold
into the vast water
until we are light as forgiveness,
all I have to offer
is this honest, ineffable
awareness of now.