Why I Love

I've been asked before
why I love so many?
Been told by others
that I'm addicted to love.
I can't explain
a single specific reason,
because I know for certain,
there is more than one.

First, because my earliest memories
are filled with the proof
of the inability to trust
in the permanence of love,
when the one who should have
loved me unconditionally
abandoned me, because I
wasn't self-sufficient.
Over the years since,
I've only seen it proved
time and time again.
They always leave you
in the end.

On the other hand,
I don't want anyone
to feel the way I felt.
That there is no one
who loves them.
I don't want them
to feel that a mother
is a void that yawns open
like a portal to Hell.
I don't want them to feel
that a cousin is merely
another name for a molester,
acting out teenage explorations.
I don't want them to think
that every lover
is going to leave them
because love isn't real.

I love because I believe,
how else can you be loved?
I love because I'm desperate
to find something lasting
in a world where impermanence
was my first cruel lesson learned.
I love because I cannot bear
to face life without
someone else by my side.
I love because I cannot bear
to turn someone away
like I have been
so many times before.

I love, because if I
am worthy of loving,
then so is every one
of you.
And I will never
tell someone they are not
worthy of being loved.

© Tortured Cyclone 2015