In the Middle of the Street

“There are some people who come into your life with

a light so bright they make you forget where you

are. Find these people and live in their suns. You

are their planets and you are their moons.

And that is how life is meant to be lived. How

people are meant to be loved. Be someone’s light,

even in the middle of the street.”

~Robert M. Drake

This poem really made me think about what we mean to one another, but more so than the rudimentary label of friend, family, or lover. What we really mean to them. Who we are on a deeper level in their life? For me, when I love someone they become the focus of my existence. Everything I am, everything I do, everything I think, revolves around them and their happiness. It might sound a little crazy but that is just how I am. I feel emotions with an absurdly extreme intensity. For those of whom might be scared off by this, that is okay, for they feel love in another way.

When I love someone, they are my “light in the middle of the street”. When everything seems dark, they fill my body with warmth that ignites the embers of my heart. I can’t help it, it is just how my soul behaves. It sparks the poet in me. I find love written on the pages, never clearly, but with such encryption that only the heart can decipher. I feel that everyone should love with a sense of madness. It should drive you straight to the edge of sanity and then pull you back home. For what is love without a little lunacy? Does that even suffice?

If you still find yourself shielding your eyes from the light by which that person shines, then you are not ready my friend. This sensation isn’t meant for the weary. It is not meant for the jaded or the unattached. It is an over powering emotion that will drown you in your own being.

These words may sound harsh, slightly daunting in fact, but they are real and that’s where the beauty lies. Love isn’t smooth sailing. It’s not just one feeling laid clearly on the page. Its fear mixed with joy and joy mixed with fear. Love is trust. It is lending your light for the sake of another. It is braving the discomfort of a storm for the sake of grazing lightning that strikes your heart and awakens the intensity living inside you.

And in the same way that I love, I want to be another’s sun. Not in a self-seeking type of way. I want to be able to provide happiness. I want my presence to lighten their day or their mood. I want our fires to collide into an explosion of graceful force. Passion is what I seek, and I will not settle for anything of lesser degree.

That is my love, what is yours?