That Time When I Learned Poem by Ann Marge

That time when I learned


That time when I learned
that you can share the unhealed parts of you
with your old love
those parts that were present in your then-self
in relation to them
in that time of your life
when you shared the most intimate aspects of your being
with that forever together-person
which turned out to be
a fraction of your life-person
a ray of sunshine in your growth
a drop of water
a tiny storm in your ascension
to a higher state of being.
That time, I knew peace.


That time when I learned
that we carry around in our emotional selves
bits and parts of all the ones
we've loved and lost
and those familiar reminiscences
like tiny grains of sands in our shoes
that seem to be what makes us who we are,
are, in fact,
impediments in our today experience
in our present manifestation of love
beyond and above
in our present understanding of freedom.
That time, I knew wisdom.

All the times that are yet to come
when I'll learn something about myself,
all the times
when I'll be fragile,
all the times
when I'll remove
a grain of sand from my shoes,
I'll know that
there's a lot to gain
when you think you lose
and I thank my then-self and now-self
for always knowing what to choose.