In life and in love, poetry makes every emotion more tangible. Poetry has given me community. I return to my favorite poems time and time again. In every moment of both misery and joy, I’m reminded of how the same emotions have been felt through generations. No feeling of mine is an original experience, and for that, I’m so grateful. Whether you’re anxiously awaiting the “wyd” text from a person who you could outshine on your worst day or resting your head on the love of your life’s shoulder as you dance to “La Vie en Rose” in your shared kitchen after a few glasses of sweet red wine, love brings every one of us back to the same place.
Handing over my heart despite shaky hands has rewarded me in unimaginable ways, even though it has also hurt me in such ways that momentarily convinced me I would never do it again. Hiding your love is doing a disservice to those around you.
And so, for every stage of love, I have a poem to remind you of what a privilege it is to feel.
For your situationship: “To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall” by Kim Addonizio
“If you ever woke in your dress at 4am ever
closed your legs to someone you loved opened
them for someone you didn’t moved against
a pillow in the dark stood miserably on a beach
seaweed clinging to your ankles
…
stayed up
to watch the moon eat the sun entire
ripped out the stitches in your heart
because why not if you think nothing &
no one can / listen I love you joy is coming”
Crying in a bathroom stall is one of the most humbling universal experiences. The volatile nature of the noncommittal commitment of situationships is the downfall of every cool person you know. Situationships leave you wondering what’s real and what’s fake and whether there was ever anything real there at all. They told you about their favorite novel and how their first love broke their heart. All of these intimate moments come together to eventually dissipate into nothing because it’s not like you ever put a label on it. You just text them every piece of exciting news you receive and buy them coffee on the way to their apartment, but it’s nothing big. It’s casual. It’s chill.
For your friend with benefits: “A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention” by Yehuda Amichai
“They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I’m concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantle us
Each from the other.
As far as I’m concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.”
Whenever you are strictly physical with someone, the possibility of something more is overwhelming. The two of you will never reach the sky and will never hover higher than two feet off the ground. Every night that passes, the questions become louder and louder. While the pair of you may never be anything more, remember that you were always more than a late-night text. You were always more beautiful with the lights on in your favorite sweater and worn pair of jeans.
For whenever your love ends: “Still” by Marc Alan Di Martino
“There are still birds, still things coming to life
in unexpected ways. Still nights and days.
Nocturnal, diurnal. Circadian rhythms
scratching an itch at the back of the throat.
Still family, still friends. Still love
slapping you silly with its rubber tongue,
salt that makes your stomach sing a psalm,
palettes of rusted foliage, stray bees
in November, still buzzing in the lavender.”
Losing your love knocks the breath out of you. Everything feels monotonous, and every day is cloudy. The absolute misery consumes you in such a way that makes you feel like happiness was never there. The beautiful thing is, life goes on with or without you. Love exists within the birds singing and the flowers blooming and your friends screaming with you in a parking lot at 11 p.m. on a Monday night. You will laugh and you will love even if it feels like everything good is gone; the pasta will still taste as wonderful as it did before.
For when you move on: “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden
“Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?”
As the hole in your heart begins to shrink further and further, your eyes open to the kindness that has been around you all along. I never knew how much I was loved until I saw how people sought to comfort me in a time of desperate need. At the time, all I could see was what I didn’t have. The most wonderful thing about a breakup is seeing how people show up for you knowing they will receive nothing in return. Finding out who you are outside of them accompanied by the kindness of the people that surround you is the greatest gift. And even when the hurting ends, the thankless kindness does not.
For when you’re looking for a new, real love: “The Patience of Ordinary Things” by Pat Schneider (excerpt)
“It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stand sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.”
The key to finding the love you’re looking for lies in embracing the love that surrounds you first. I never knew how well I could be loved until I saw how the water reaches for the sand and how the leaves of my dying houseplant turn toward the tiniest sliver of sunlight in my cinderblock dorm room. The soles of your feet know where you’re supposed to be. You can either be where your feet are (hopefully in the grass on a beautiful day) or wondering why you weren’t good enough for the person who was looking at you under the disco ball glow of a bar. You have always had love. If nothing else, the cup will hold the tea.
For when you’re falling in love: “the first love poem in an infinite set” by @poemsinla
“Hey, I don’t know what this feeling is, but I want to tell you everything all the time, and I want to send you every song I’ve ever loved, and tell you about all the things that I love (show them to you, too). And I’d like to hear you play guitar every night and (be next to you every night) and make breakfast in the morning. Watch you drink tea. And I’m sending things like: I want to carve a whole in your chest and tumble in and. Are you free later? … I think I’ve wanted this my whole life. And if you leave I’ll write so much poetry. But if you stay, I’ll find so much more.”
When you’re falling in love with someone, your life turns technicolor. There’s romance everywhere. You can’t get enough of them or their voice. Screaming from the rooftops for all of Ann Arbor to hear still isn’t attuning enough ears to the sound of your love. Falling in love is knowing that it could end and still choosing to pursue them, because this happiness is unlike anything else. Falling in love is so all-consuming that not even lying skin-to-skin is close enough.
For when you are in love: “Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance” by Ada Limón (excerpt)
“I’d like to say this means
I love you, the stained white cotton T-shirt,
the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange
peels on my desk, but it’s different than that.
I move in this house with you, the way I move
in my mind, unencumbered by beauty’s cage.
I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me
than much else. I’m wrong, it is that I love you,
but it’s more that when you say it back, lights
out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe
the first time in my life, I believe it.”
Truly loving someone is being comfortable. Loving each other becomes second nature. You begin to know each other so well that existing with them is muscle memory. You make their coffee with two sugars and a splash of half and half as if you have been doing it for them your whole life. Even when you revert back to your most primal instincts, you still remember what kind of chocolate they want from the 7-Eleven on State Street. Loving them becomes as essential as breathing. It’s an easy love that is only believable in the same state that dreams are made.
Daily Arts Writer Sarah Patterson can be reached at sarahpat@umich.edu.