When I Opened Myself To You Poem by Linda Marie Van Tassell

When I opened myself to you,
it wasn’t to receive what you were giving me,
it was to give you all of me - -
each breath, each sigh,
each echo of life
that abounds in your breath,
that outlives the living,
to go on living in you.


When I opened myself to you,
I wasn’t trying to escape anything;
but somehow, I found myself on the other shore.
I looked back and could see me, stranded,
looking right at me, now absent, afar,
having lost myself inside of you.


When I opened myself to you,
I didn’t know that I would lose myself forever,
my heart, my soul, every breath of being
ever intertwined with you.


When I opened myself to you,
I opened like the petals of a flower
stretched wide for the open glory of the sun,
the sky, the fresh morning air.
I tumbled and crumbled and crawled.
I fell, immeasurably, irreducibly, in love.


When I opened myself to you,
I didn’t profess my undying love.
I lived it.
I pronounced it in spirit, in soul,
in the only irrevocable way that I knew.


When I opened myself to you,
I stood breathless on the precipice
of who I was and who I’d become,
of the old me and the new me,
the you-me, the we.


When I opened myself to you,
I gave you everything;
and in the giving, I lost more than I knew I had.


Now, when I open myself to you,
I open my eyes to a world of ghosts,
all things that are living but not,
that float through my vision,
hurtling themselves towards the only life I know -
you!


Now, when I open, I am alone,
a lone flower in a field of weeds;
and still I open,
in the only way I know,
in honor of what used to be,
what will never be,
what never was.


I open in memory,
in the joy of remembrance,
in lament of longing,
in absence of the real me,
the old me that I never knew,
who was born in the blossom of love
on the cusp of the great divide,
the divide between then and now,
here and there,
somewhen and somewhere,
with you and without you.


I open my eyes, my soul,
my breath of being to you,
always for you,
only for you.


I open in search of the real me,
my eyes scanning the shore
for the sight or sound of you;
for, I know when I find you,
when I discern you
and touch you and feel you,
I will find me, the real me,
the new me, the we-me
that I could never be without you.


Without you,
I close.