On Whitman's 5th Canto

[5]

I believe in you my soul.... the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other. 

Loafe with me on the grass.... loose the stop from your throat, 

Not words, not music or rhyme I want.... not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning;

You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned upon me, 

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart,

And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth;

And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,

And that all men ever born are also brothers.... and the women my sisters and lovers,

And the kelson of the creation is love;

And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,

And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,

And mossy scabs of the wormfence, and heaped stones, and elder and mullen and pokeweed. 

- by Walt Whitman

Can I express how much I want this?-- Whitman's limitless love: a love for creation, for all things created; no exceptions. 

Because I know I have had it before. Because I know there is such a feeling, but I can't articulate it. I can see it's memory, but I can't sense it. Because I hope that I can still obtain it-- I pursue it, and I kill it. 

Yes- I recognize that I disable myself from this love.

I realize that he does not hold the key.

I remember that I had loved myself, and now all the self-loathing I feel for loathing my loathing is a vicious cycle that won't end until I stop it, 

But I can't stop it because my inherent reaction is to hate myself,

And to rely on him,

And to disregard everything else between me and him

Keeping myself from the pure love-- the actual, honest, true love-- that I know exists, not because I read Whitman's words, but because I felt it once;

Once when I didn't know about it

Once when I could see it written, and not read it because I didn't know it existed.

Now that I know it exists everywhere, can I come by it again?

Now I read the words that articulate it, and can see the words and the memory, but I can't sense it. 

Still the sight makes my brain shut down, and my heart takes over--

Pumping so hard, there is no place for the excess blood that floods into my stomach until I am near bursting;

Bursting with blood, though some seem to think bursting with love,

And I wish they were right, but I know they are not because

Love exists everywhere.... it's not a feeling in my stomach.

No- this feeling is love's gravity pushing against me from all sides; outside of me. 

This feeling is love attempting to flood through my body, but I am a closed capsule 

And I am sealed off from it.