LOVE HARDER, LOVE INTENSELY

When we have been hurt once, we make the mistake of shielding our hearts from loving again or loving too deeply the next time. This is very wrong. This is allowing the darkness to win against the light. The right thing to do is the opposite. Love hard, hurt hard, stand up, heal, fall hard again and love even harder. Next time, love HARDER. The only thing that can heal a broken heart is complete re-immersion into the intensity of love. Only intense love can dispel the spectre of the fear of love. Because it touches the core of the spirit and makes it know it is alive.

The nature of intense love is that, if your heart gets broken, it takes a long time to fall out of it and to heal, once you have given your heart and your trust and your openness to someone. Depth does not permit superficiality. Intensity does not permit an easy withdrawal or a quick transition. If you love hard, moving on will be very hard. But once you’re gone, looking back or coming back will also be very hard, because you are also going to fall hard into the next one. True love is intense, because only intensity is satisfying and fulfilling. Intensity is an addictive drug.

And nothing is more intense than the intimacy of shared truthfulness. Not even sex is an intimate as the sharing of truth and trust. A person who cannot share their truth with you, or who you cannot share your truth with, is inwardly distant from you. You will never have an intense intimate relationship with this person. The bond with this person will not be deep and satisfying. The pains will not be deep, neither will the joys. Moving on for or from such a person will be quick and easy. But your emptiness will not be filled.

If you want your emptiness to be filled, you have to have the courage to open your heart and fall fully, give yourself fully, share deeply and honestly, and love hard. Love HARDER. It comes with the risk and certainty of pain, but also of the deepest joy and satisfaction possible. And, above all, it is one of the only few things on earth that can really change a human spirit and help it to mature and develop. Because it touches your core and makes you even more alive.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

BROKEN RHYME

When trust breaks
The universe shakes

The heart aches
And aches and aches
And aches…

Because the poem has lost what it takes
To ever rhyme again.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

MARCH TOWARDS APRIL

So many things ending in my life this month, as March ends. And so many things starting. Looking forward to April. Is my heart big enough to contain and bear it all? Yes, my heart is always big enough. And when it isn’t, it simply grows some more, grows again.

Aries, as ever, you end the old and bring the new. For me, to me, in me.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

AFTERMATH

It took me a while to acknowledge and accept the betrayal. And the permanent change. It is what it is. But now that I have, I have. Now, we can successfully pretend, together and apart, that it never happened; and that we were never that close. Now the bond is broken. The intimate bond of trust.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

INTERACTIONS AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS  

Envy and Jealousy and Possessiveness. Distrust and Disloyalty and the breaking of Promises. Not knowing one’s boundaries. Untoward and unjustified claims upon the other. Intrusiveness. Space and vicinity. Balance. Knowing the line between giving and taking, between being there and crossing boundaries, between being close enough and being too close for comfort. Knowing which demands and expectations are legitimate and must be met, and which ones are too intrusive. Respect. Mutual respect. Consideration for the other’s nature. Making the effort to know the other better. Carefulness. Intimacy. Understanding the different layers and forms of intimacy, and knowing which ones to share with which people, which ones apply within which forms of friendship, which ones are exclusive and which ones are inclusive. You can connect with many people deeply, and each connection is different. But there is a certain connection that can only be shared with one, or none, at every point in time. Truthfulness and honesty and trust and bravery. Trust is a form of bravery. Reciprocity in our relationships with one another.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

THE DOGS OF WAR AGAIN

The fogs of war
Clouding and blinding -
The cogs of war
Tripping up and grinding -
The bogs of war
Weighing down and binding -
The blogs of war
Lying, agitating, not minding -
The dogs of war
Stuck in the past, rewinding.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

STOP ACCEPTING LIES

Stop accepting lies
Dressed up as niceness –
Humiliation lies
In falsehood, not kindness.
Empty conversations
Masking your blindness –
A Disappointed Soul
Will answer with silence.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE HURTING SPACE

Allow yourself the space to hurt,
To mourn, to miss what is gone;
If your tears want to wet your shirt,
Let them fall, and flow, and run.

Give yourself enough time to heal,
The heart needs a while to transform;
To intuit, to perceive, to deeply feel
Is for the heart simply the norm.

Walk away slowly from your past,
No need to rush, you’re not coming back.
Take in everything, first to the last,
And then continue down that one-way track.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

ACCEPTING THAT

Accepting that you are not the one
for the one you love and want the most
is the most hurtful pain to sleep upon
Night after night hugging a ghost.

Accepting rejection without rejecting acceptance
of and by yourself and those who love and value you
is a difficult and uphill task, a complicated dance,
but also a chance for you to liberate and revalue you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

EMOTIONAL FREEDOM

God is teaching me to not be emotionally dependent on any human being on Earth; to have nobody of whom I think or feel that I cannot live without this person. It’s a painful process, but to everybody who has rejected or is rejecting me, I say Thank you. Whatever your intention was, God has made something greater out of it.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains