There is a human propensity
to grasp and hold tight to things,
to tether ourselves to what we love,
especially in relationships.
This urge to claim, to own,
transforms love into possession.
“It is mine. I own it.”
But in doing so,
the beloved becomes an object,
the soul of them diminished,
boxed into a shape
that can no longer move or breathe.
And yet, the grip tightens,
for the fear of losing them
looms larger than love itself.
The Woman Who Has My Heart
I think of her—
the woman who has my heart.
What drew me to her
was not her form, though beautiful,
nor her words, though wise,
but something altogether ineffable.
It was the smoke rising
from the fire of my passion—
formless, forever changing,
beautiful, and free.
She was magic—
the kind that cannot
be labeled or contained.
To try would be to destroy her.
The Fear
But fear crept in,
as it always does.
Fear that she would leave.
Fear that another would take her from me,
as a thief robs a bank.
I had no say in this.
I could only stand by,
vulnerable, exposed,
the connection between us
fragile as glass.
And so I clung to what I could:
The fear itself.
It was corporeal,
something I could hold tight,
lock away, own.
And in doing so,
I pushed out the magic,
the beauty that had first captured me.
The very act of grasping
extinguished the fire.
The Mirror in Painting
In painting, too,
I see this mirrored.
The temptation to push an image
over its message,
to fixate on the visual beauty
rather than the feeling it evokes,
is strong.
A painting begins as something
ethereal, wild, free—
like love,
it cannot be boxed in
without losing its soul.
And yet,
the fear of losing the image,
of losing the magic, creeps in.
It demands control.
And in that control,
the painting’s spirit fades.
Letting Go
To hold too tightly
is to kill what we love.
Whether it is the soft breath
of a relationship,
or the fleeting spark of a painting,
the challenge is the same:
To let it be wild,
changing, and free.
To love without owning.
To paint without fixing.
For beauty and magic
exist only in the untamed,
the intangible,
the ever-changing.
And it is only in letting go
that we can truly keep
what we cherish
