Love and Reasons

"Only miserable people will tell you
that love has to be deserved."

– Tony Hoagland, "What Narcissism Means To Me"

Love refuses to be reason's pet, to sit obediently
tied to the causal chain of deservedness
and reasonableness: "Thus", "Therefore", "Because",
"In conclusion, those are the many considered
and appropriate reasons I love you". Woof.

A fool, I labored
to list your worthy qualities. Please,
forget romance and evidence.
Tear up those explanations and justifications
turning a wild man
dancing naked through town
into a scientific name, a treatable disorder.

Also tear up your clothing
and your consideration.
Get naked with me!
Shed that outer adult
whose intelligence could render
a farm into a factory, a community into a program,
a lover into an associate, a gift into a transaction, a kiss
whole and free and wild into a brisk handshake.

Becoming children, seeing the children
inside one another, we receive and then give
undeservable love.
Bubbling, joyous, ridiculous, free—
this adoration has no beginning
and apparently no end,
no answer to any question,
no sanity whatsoever.

I love so much
about you, and I love
to say so. But love is not because.
Love is
—or it isn't—
I am who I am,
a blanketing uncertainty,
a primordial ocean.