Unconditional

Never say you love unconditionally unless

You love every facet, every crevice

Unless you love both light and dark

If you do not embrace them when they are different

You love them with conditions

Studiously ignoring parts of the whole

Means loving only that which you can stick neatly into

Some predetermined box or cage

Pretending that words have never been said

Invalidates, wounds and demeans

Like peppering them with shrapnel

Refusing to celebrate their victories

Because they do not agree with what you want of them

Feels more like judging and denying

Than loving them despite their flaws

Unconditional love, loves someone including their flaws

Loves someone when they revel in the dark

When they are afraid of the light

Loving someone with all that you are

BECAUSE of all that they are.

Few people are capable of loving this completely

But I refuse to be loved in any other way

I will no longer support the lie

That you love me unconditionally

I will no longer hide parts of the whole

Because they make you uncomfortable

I will no longer be burned by the light

So that you can brag about how I came out of the dark

And if I spend my life alone

It will not be scared of loneliness

I will live it knowing that I traded no part of myself

For love that was not real

I will shed the occasional tear for all you missed out on

And in time I will not think of you at all

- Tanya R Simon, 2014