To Have Without Holding

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

-- To Have Without Holding, Marge Piercy

It's funny. The first time I read this poem, I was probably 17, green as an unfurled leaf, and never had a boyfriend. Much less sexual experience. But this poem just struck me and the first time I read it, I knew how to read it out loud, too. The rhythm, the matter-of-fact-ness, the pain, the cynicism, the forced amusement at cetain parts, and the exhaustion and acceptance at the end.

I remember Mikael once planned and organized this poetry reading night in school, and he invited me to read. I had a power meeting that day that lasted until about 9 PM, and I rushed to the SEC foyer clutching two poems--one mine, the other one was Without Holding. When I get there, the place was packed and maybe about 7 people have already read. Mikael walks up to me and says, "O ano Drey, ililista ko na ba pangalan mo dun sa manila paper? Magbabasa ka ba?"

My knees were shaking but I knew I wanted to do it, I say to myself, Okay Drey, bite the bullet. So I give Mikael this shaky little nod and he walks off. Finally, my turn came, and if I remember correctly, Mikael gives this embarrasing introduction about me being a writer and a published scientist at the same time. (As if. He was in the same course as me and he was a published poet, for crying out loud.)

I walk to the little impromptu stage, knees knocking together. I ramble a little bit, apologizing that it was my first time to read, and adding that, like all first times, this could be a little painful. (Shit, I still cringe thinking about that. There were professors there, for fuck's sake.) Anyway, I read my poem first (which was awful, come to think of it now), then Without Holding.

After I finish, I walk back to my seat (knees still shaking), and this girl stops me and says, "I really like the second poem." Now, I want to answer wryly but truthfully, "Yes, me too."

So there you have it. I have come to realize I am not and never will be a poet. But dammit, dammit. Almost 8 years later, I totally, totally get this poem.