To Love is not to possess

To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who you really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another--and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite childhood scars
Or adulthood’s deepest wounds,
you are openly free to be
Who you really are--and always secretly were,
In the very core of your being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.”