a sestina: "Understanding love"

How do I know that I love you?
It is unbearable for me to look inside.
But, I have this feeling that bubbles up,
Whenever you are near.
This is hard for me to explain or even understand,
With as much as I don't know, I'm certain that this is love.

Every part of my being screams of my love,
And the name of my love belongs to you.
Still, my actions can be cold, cruel and not easy to understand.
I may pride myself in expression, but this I keep locked inside.
The explanation of this enigma finds itself near,
Yet my tongue gets tired and I give up.

The confusion sets in, as feelings and actions get mixed up.
You have every right to question my love.
I fight myself, me feelings, my actions and whenever you are near
I make an effort to fight with you.
Everything gets so distorted and disfigured inside.
We suffer from the reaction of my mind's rejection of what it cannot understand.

I fight with myself, with you, with my feelings just trying to understand.
So often I get tired of trying and just want to give up,
And yet, I don't because I feel love for you inside.
I remember the moment I realized that you are the one that I love.
We took some time to figure out the world and I lost you.
It was so very clique; you left when I wanted you to be near.

How could I have known, that the whole time you wanted to hold me near?
I drew away even more because I just couldn't understand
That you needed me and I needed you.
We were damaged, broken and fed up,
As it had happened in the past, we were, again, failing in love.
Pushing on with guarded hearts, we struggled inside.

I fight with you when I am actually fighting a war inside
And all I can hope for is that the end of the was is near.
Its time for me to look to myself and learn to love.
I'm starting to get it, to understand,
When I push and hide, when I give up,
It is me that need love, because it has always been easy to love you.

I think that the love I wanted to hide inside
Was always waiting for you to be near.
Its time for me to understand that loving you means never giving up.


A sestina is a complex French verse that contains a specific pattern of word repetition. For more info on sestinas: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-term.html?term=Sestina