POEM - Simultaneous Consent

Human romance trades in tragedy;

the continual fear that a living lover is losable,

even after they’ve sworn to be by your side

until death

And I suspect we would see far less loss

if we didn’t overburden our bonds

with the infirm notion that our lovers

mustn’t crave anything more than

whatever it is which we

happen to be

  

I have seen otherwise highly and mutually

beneficial relationships discarded like snot

because of a single slip-up in one partner’s

ability to be sexually exclusive

in the expected extremes

Monogamy is the trapping of creatures

who never stop struggling to survive

long enough to enjoy the boundless

thrills of thriving

Humans live relatively free of nature’s brutality,

yet most of us cling to the stillborn love-ender

which that choking leash of temperance

will never stop being

  

We should delight in each other’s bodies

the way we do in conversational company

The excitement of physical adventure

should not be seen as some demon

to be drowned

For experience is what shapes us

And our shapes have long been starved

of security in love’s most primal expression

So we can keep cloaking the need for varied touch

in derogatory terminology, hellbent on shame

(as though the mere act of hugging loved ones

would ever be cause to call someone a whore),

or we can begin owning the root of our evil:

that we greatly fear losses in love,

and have been taught not to outgrow

said insecurities