May I Have This Dance? by Devi Nina Bingham

My darling,

Every couple travels a road of its own, yet the landscape of love is remarkably familiar. There are mountains impossibly high and valleys so deep that we sometimes wonder how we will ever climb out again. There will be days when your beloved finds herself stranded on a narrow ledge, and you must summon the courage to climb toward her. There will be other days when she is sinking into a frigid sea, and you must plunge into the water, even when the cold threatens to steal your breath. And then, when your own strength falters, she will be the one reaching for you.

Love offers us its ecstasies, of course. The breathless beginnings, the intoxicating kisses, the delicious discovery of another body and soul. But love also tests every promise we make. There are seasons when we are not reclining in the afterglow of passion but enduring, simply enduring, the difficult weather of being human together.

During such seasons, we may feel as though we have wandered into a desert that passion has forgotten. Only prickly cacti bloom there. The sun is merciless, the earth is thirsty, and the clouds refuse us their gentle shade. Desire is thwarted. Patience wears thin. Our hearts, which once seemed so magnificent in their capacity for love, suddenly become as whiny as a tired child and as fragile as the surface of a frozen lake.

And in those seasons, we wonder why we made such extraordinary promises.

Why did we promise to journey beside another complicated, impossible heart when life itself is struggling to survive within our own breast? How can we sustain another needy, fractured soul when our own melody has yet to be fully heard? This is the unspoken dilemma of every lasting relationship. Two imperfect people, each carrying old wounds and private fears, decide to travel together. Neither possesses a complete map. Neither knows exactly what the journey will demand. And neither can promise to save the other.

Perhaps that is the first great lesson of love: we can only save ourselves. Still, we try.

We extend a hand. We sit beside the other in silence. We return after an argument. We offer an apology when pride would prefer to build a monument to its own righteousness. We learn to listen when every impatient bone in our body wants to be heard instead. And in that trying, something miraculous occurs. Grace is offered and accepted. One broken soul lends a little of its strength to another, not because it has strength to spare, but because love has taught it that tenderness is sometimes the bravest thing we can afford.

This is where love's deepest promise is realized. Not always in the heat of passion, but in the quiet hours when passion is nowhere to be found and we choose, nevertheless, to draw our beloved toward safety. Real love is forged in the unsung moments. It is the hand that reaches across the bed after a difficult conversation. The voice that softens when it might have sharpened. The willingness to say, I see now. I did not understand you before, but I want to understand you now.

These are not the grand gestures that inspire poetry or make beautiful scenes in the cinema. Yet they are the small, unremarkable acts upon which a life together is built. And that brings me to trust. Trust is the thread that holds the garment of love together. It is woven slowly through promises kept, words that prove true, and the quiet assurance that the person beside us will not deliberately use our vulnerability against us.

When trust is broken, it can sometimes be mended. But every tear leaves its mark, and repeated injuries weaken the fabric. Eventually, if we continue pulling at the threads, there may be too little left to sew together. The garment that once kept two people warm begins to unravel until both are standing in the cold, wondering where the warmth went.

This is why forgiveness matters so deeply. We forgive because we are not strangers to error. We know the strange geography of our own hearts, the detours we take, the foolish things we say, and the moments when fear disguises itself as anger and pride pretends to be principle. We know how easily we can become unrecognizable even to ourselves, and yet, we hope to be understood.

Perhaps you have heard someone say of a beloved, She knows me better than I know myself. What a remarkable thing that is! Someone has witnessed our contradictions, our inconsistencies, and our less admirable moments and has continued to look for the person beneath them. We are such peculiar creatures. Just when we think we have finally figured ourselves out, consciousness changes the furniture. We alter our appearance, change our profession, discover new passions, abandon old convictions, and become someone we could not have imagined a few years earlier. But beneath all these transformations, we remain creatures who need to be understood, accepted, and forgiven.

I am writing to you about these things because, recently, my darling, I had an opportunity to show up for you, and I did not do it very gracefully. Instead of being your steady rock, I threw a tantrum. I insisted upon my own way and left you wondering whether you could trust the promises I had made. I am not proud of that moment, and I do not wish to dress it up in pretty language to make it more palatable. I behaved like a frustrated child who could not have what she wanted.

Why did I do it?

Because years of singleness have taught me to be self-reliant, self-directed, and, if I am being honest, rather accustomed to having my own way. When you have spent a long time steering your own ship, you forget that another capable person may have a hand on the wheel. Now I am part of a couple, and some of those old habits must change. Not because I must surrender myself, but because I have chosen to make room for you. There is a difference. I am beginning to understand that trust is not merely believing you will love me tomorrow. It is trusting your judgment today, especially when your judgment leads us in a direction I would not have chosen myself.

You were doing what you do so brilliantly: solving a problem. You are persistent, my darling. When a door refuses to open, you do not simply walk away and admire the architecture. You examine the lock, inspect the hinges, consider the key, and return to the problem with renewed determination. At first, I mistook your persistence for stubbornness. I thought you were being obstinate, refusing to accept that something could not be done. But when I looked more carefully, I saw something else. For you, a no is not necessarily the end of a conversation. It is the beginning of another investigation. Somewhere inside that beautiful, organized mind of yours, you are already searching for a different approach, another possibility, a solution that has not yet revealed itself.

You were not trying to make life difficult; you were trying to make something work. That is what your profession has taught you to do, and you have become remarkably good at it. You examine the facts, consider the alternatives, and persist until the problem finally yields.

I, on the other hand, can be rather impatient with practicality. I see a problem and immediately wonder how to make it beautiful, pleasurable, meaningful, or spiritually illuminating. If it refuses to cooperate, I may be tempted to abandon it altogether and go in search of something more interesting.

I ask different questions than you do.

What is the deeper meaning of this experience? Does someone need to feel understood? Can empathy make a difference? What might I create that would bring a little more loveliness into the world? And, above all, what can I do to touch your heart? You see, my darling, I approach life as an artist, a romantic, and an incurable hedonist. I want to make the world more beautiful and the hours more pleasurable. You approach it as a practical, disciplined problem-solver who wants to make the world work as it should.

Neither approach is wrong.

But when two very different ways of seeing the world collide, misunderstanding is almost inevitable. I was looking at what I wanted. You were looking at what needed to be done. I interpreted your persistence as resistance to me when, in truth, you were pursuing a solution. And there I was, protesting like a child who had been told she could not have the red balloon.

Eventually, I had to step back and look at myself. I had been so busy insisting upon my own way that I had failed to recognize the value of yours. I had mistaken a difference in motivation for a failure of love. I had forgotten that your intentions could be every bit as loving as mine, even when they led you toward a different conclusion.

So I apologized.

Not because I had suddenly become a perfect woman, heaven forbid, but because I had finally understood what the moment was asking of me. It was my turn to yield. And yielding, I am learning, is not the same as losing.

Perhaps one of the great mysteries of love is that we so often choose someone whose strengths are the very things we lack. We are drawn to the qualities that both fascinate and frustrate us, the abilities we admire but do not naturally possess.

I am irrepressibly romantic, playful, artistic, and frequently impractical. You are serious, methodical, and wonderfully organized. You are so businesslike that you once included in a written proposal your intention to court me.

My darling, I still smile when I think about that!

Who else would formalize romance in a proposal? Who else would decide that the best way to clarify her intentions was to set them out in writing, as though love itself might benefit from a well-structured document?

I found it both amusing and insanely adorable.

You probably never considered how unusual it was. To your mind, you were simply making your intentions clear. And there I was, a woman of words and metaphors, falling in love with the very practicality that sometimes drives me to distraction.

How deliciously strange we are.

Thank God you are a practical woman.

And thank the Goddess I am an artistic one.

The world needs both. A beautiful idea may inspire us, but someone must figure out how to bring it into being. A brilliant plan may solve a problem, but someone must remember the human heart that will live with the consequences. We need reason and imagination, discipline and spontaneity, the engineer and the poet.

And in our little world, my darling, we need you and me. So I want to make you a promise. In matters of practicality, I will try to trust your judgment and allow you the room to do what you do best. I will try not to mistake your determination for opposition or your questions for a refusal to understand me. I will remember that you may be working toward a solution even when I have already decided there is no hope.

And in matters of the humanities, especially art, psychology, and expression, I hope you will sometimes allow me to lead. Let me bring the colors, the music, the questions that cannot be answered by a spreadsheet. Let me remind you that not everything beautiful needs to be efficient, and not everything meaningful can be measured.

We are both capable women. Neither of us needs to disappear for the other to shine. We simply need to learn when to lead and when to follow. Which brings me to the dance.

My darling, a dance is such a beautiful metaphor for a relationship. Sometimes one partner moves forward while the other follows. Sometimes the music changes, and the one who led the previous song must learn to surrender the next. Sometimes we step on each other's toes, lose the rhythm, and nearly collide. And sometimes, if we are patient enough, we find ourselves moving together so naturally that we can no longer remember who is leading.

I have spent much of my life taking the reins. In my younger years, I led clients, managed a business, and cared for my little family. I was not always graceful, but people could generally count on me to show up and work through whatever difficulties life placed in our path. I became accustomed to being the person who knew what to do. There is comfort in that role. There is also a certain loneliness. When you are always the one holding everything together, you can forget what it feels like to lean against someone else's strength.

And now, my darling, life has given me a new and rather lovely dance partner. I am learning to follow. Not blindly. Not timidly. Not by abandoning my voice or pretending that my own instincts have no value. I am learning to follow with trust, with curiosity, and with the humility to recognize that another person may see something I cannot.

I am discovering the sweetness of yielding to a capable, younger, and gentler force than the one I have so often tried to be. And there is something unexpectedly liberating about it. We may stand shoulder to shoulder and make a formidable pair, but perhaps we are even stronger when we allow one another to take the lead. There is a grace in that exchange that cannot be achieved by two people determined to prove that neither needs the other.

We are not in competition, my darling. We are partners. And the dance has only just begun.

There will be other songs, other disagreements, other moments when I forget myself and you become exasperated with my inability to appreciate the obvious solution. There will be times when your practical mind needs my imagination, and times when my wandering heart needs your steady hand.

When those moments arrive, I hope we will remember that we are not enemies standing on opposite sides of a problem. Instead, we are two women standing on the same side, trying to find our way through it together. That is what I want our love to become: a place where neither of us must win at the expense of the other. A place where we can disagree without withdrawing our affection, apologize without humiliation, and change our minds without feeling that we have somehow become smaller. A place where trust is strengthened by the very moments that test it.

And so, my darling, I think it is my turn to follow.

I am still learning your steps. I may occasionally stumble, and I suspect you will sometimes have to rescue my poor toes from the enthusiastic ambitions of my feet. But I am willing to learn. I am willing to listen. I am willing to let you show me what you see. Because I have begun to understand that love is not simply finding someone who will dance to our favorite song. It is learning to hear the music that moves the other person's heart.

And when you reach for my hand again and ask, "May I have this dance?" I hope I will smile, place my hand in yours, and allow myself to be led. I hope I will trust your footwork, admire your clever turns, and delight in the way you find a path through life's tangled corridors. I hope I will remember that following you does not diminish me, any more than allowing me to lead diminishes you. For some songs, you will lead best. For others, I will. 

And over time, perhaps we will discover the exquisite ease of no longer needing to decide who is in charge. We will simply feel the music, recognize the moment, and move together.

That, my darling, is the dance I want with you. Not a perfect dance. Not one without missteps or bruised toes. But a dance in which we keep reaching for each other, learning each other's rhythms, and finding our way back into one another's arms.

So yes, my love.

The next time you ask me, "May I have this dance?"

I will say yes. And this time, I will be smiling before the music even begins.

Always,

Your Poet

Love Always Wins by Devi Nina Bingham

My darling,

I have been pondering that sticky subject that new couples, freshly pierced by Cupid’s arrow, sometimes mention in passing. It is a cherished institution, yet one that strikes fear into the hearts of divorcees everywhere. I am speaking, of course, of marriage.

I have been thinking about it because you once mentioned it casually, and I responded with my usual cool skepticism, declaring that I did not want to rush into anything. Understandable, perhaps, considering that I have been married and divorced twice. When one has been burned, one tends to avoid touching the same hot stove again.

And yet, even as I disparaged marriage—that great institution of relational superglue—even as my mouth expressed doubt, my heart was leaping for joy. Not because I consider marriage itself perfect or sacred, but because, when you boil it down, it is a legal and binding contract between two people. But what made my heart leap was the thought that you could envision spending the rest of your life with me. You, such a capable, intelligent, kind, and beautiful woman, would choose me, of all people.

I think I regard you so highly and admire so much of what you have accomplished in your life that I may never completely grow accustomed to the idea of being someone you would choose. Flattered? Absolutely. I was flattered by the mere mention of the M word. But beyond that, I was honored.

It took me several days to become completely honest with myself, and then with you, about what I really felt. The truth was that I wanted that possibility with you. I did not want to protect myself from it. I did not want to build another fortress around my heart just when someone had appeared who made me want to open the gates.

It is a perfectly normal human defense mechanism to avoid whatever has hurt us most. Divorce ranks among life's most stressful experiences, alongside the death of someone we love. In its own way, divorce is a kind of emotional death: the death of a commitment, the death of a shared future, and the death of the dreams two people once held together.

When a marriage dies, the couple's collective dreams often die with it, and two hearts that once promised to travel through life together must find their separate ways. It all sounds so clinical in divorce papers, doesn't it? A few signatures, a legal decree, and the division of assets. But when you actually live through it, you discover that it is one of the most devastating losses a person can endure. Some people never fully recover. It took me six years to process everything that happened in my marriage. Six years to sift through the rubble, to discover which pieces of myself had survived, and to gather the salvageable fragments with which I could begin rebuilding a life.

And then, along came you.

I was not looking for someone worthy of marriage. I was simply hoping to escape the occasional boredom of single life, perhaps enjoy a little lighthearted flirtation, and remind myself that romance had not entirely abandoned the planet. But when a woman of your caliber walks into your life, you cannot treat the encounter lightly. To do so would make you a blind fool, incapable of distinguishing real gold from something merely spray-painted to resemble it.

I knew you were the real thing the moment I saw your photograph. I will never forget my favorite picture of you, which remains my favorite to this day: that beautiful smile worn by a beautiful soul, standing confidently in your work jumpsuit, boots, and hard hat, a tool belt resting on your hip. And somehow, despite all that practical machinery and industrial toughness, you still looked wonderfully feminine and sparkly. Because that is who you are. You contain all these apparent contradictions and somehow make them belong together.

Then I heard your voice for the first time, with its soft, calm tones and charming accent. And then there was your laugh, shy and sexy at the same time. That was when I truly lost my head over you. Your voice has perhaps been the most magnetic force of all. Sound possesses a power that can surpass even physical beauty. A voice can reach places in the heart that the eyes have not yet discovered. It can soothe, enchant, awaken, and draw two people toward one another across distances that seem otherwise impossible to bridge.

Somewhere along this road of getting to know you, I began to realize that I could never bear the thought of losing you. To lose a treasure one has spent a lifetime hoping for would be beyond tragic. It would feel like the end of hope itself. And that is why I have been contemplating a return to the scene of the crime, so to speak: the place where I last abandoned my hopes and dreams of experiencing true communion with another soul.

Because the truth is that we all fear commitment, and perhaps we have good reason to. But I have come to realize that there is something I fear even more than the possibility of being hurt again: The thought of losing you.

You are considerably younger than I am, although, between the two of us, you are undoubtedly the more responsible and practical one. I can be bouncy, silly, and frivolous at times. I am perfectly capable of turning a serious moment into an opportunity for mischief, and I suspect you have already discovered that there is a rather irrepressible child living inside me.

But both of us are necessary in this little universe we are creating.

The sun would be overwhelming without the cool moon to temper its beams. The moon, in turn, has its own mysterious beauty, but it would be a very different world without the sun's warmth and light. We complement one another in ways that neither of us could accomplish alone. And yet, while your temperament may be more like the quiet moon, the sun has lived a little longer and witnessed more devastation. It remembers shining before the moon was drawn into its orbit. It remembers planets that appeared and disappeared, sometimes before anyone had the chance to understand what they meant. So the thought of calling another planet mine is risky business indeed.

This is the difficulty with commitment. It is risky because it involves an exchange, a two-way street upon which both people must be willing to travel. Partnership asks each person to contribute, to give, to compromise, and to remain present even when the road becomes difficult. Equality between two people is not always easy to achieve. Sometimes one person gives more than the other, and sometimes the imbalance goes unnoticed until disappointment has quietly accumulated in the corners of the relationship.

Marriage, then, is a gamble. You wager your heart, your finances, your energy, your time, and your dreams, hoping the other person will reciprocate in kind. And because human beings are gloriously, maddeningly imperfect, we will inevitably disappoint one another at times, even when our love is genuine. One might reasonably conclude that marriage is not always a particularly winning proposition.

So why do we do it?

Because when you find the person who matches your heart, the treasure you have been searching for, you want to do everything within your power to hold on to what you have found. Not because marriage can guarantee that you will never lose someone. We both know that no such guarantee exists. We have lived long enough to understand that promises, however sincere, cannot control every circumstance life throws at us.

But when the heart, after an exhaustive search, finally recognizes its mate, something inside it says, Hold on. Hold on, even if logic protests. Hold on, even if the odds seem improbable. Hold on, even if the distance between you appears too great or your histories suggest that you should know better.

Love does not always look before it leaps. It sees the great divide. It recognizes the danger. It knows perfectly well that there is a possibility of falling, and yet the promise of being completely known, completely seen, and deeply loved proves irresistible. So it leaps. Sometimes it lands on its feet like a cat with nine lives. Other times, it tumbles spectacularly, picks itself up, and wonders what on earth it was thinking.

But have you noticed something remarkable? Love always wins in the end.

Perhaps not always in the form we expect. Perhaps not always according to the timetable we have chosen. But love itself continues. It survives disappointment, crosses borders, outlasts generations, and finds ways to express itself even when circumstances seem determined to silence it. We are built for love. It is woven into the fabric of our humanity. If love did not keep finding a way to prevail, I suspect our species would have destroyed itself long ago. And when the object of our affection is separated from us, the enchanted heart does not necessarily surrender. Distance may inconvenience it, frighten it, and occasionally make it behave like an overwrought fool, but it cannot always persuade the heart to abandon what it knows to be precious. The heart believes in love, sometimes long before the mind can explain why.

And love, in its own mysterious way, keeps finding a way forward. Each passing year confirms this truth for me. And I believe it will be true for us, too. We will face our share of obstacles: distance, our age difference, financial challenges, and whatever other hurdles life decides to place in our path. We will have practical matters to resolve and difficult days to navigate. I am not so starry-eyed that I imagine love will magically remove every obstacle. But I believe that what we have gives us a reason to face those obstacles together.

You may be familiar with the concept of entropy in physics, the tendency of systems to move toward disorder. Left to themselves, things wear down, disperse, and eventually lose the structures that once held them together. I would like to challenge that idea, at least metaphorically, on behalf of love. For love seems to possess a peculiar ability to expand rather than diminish. The more deeply we know someone, the more layers there are to discover. The more experiences we share, the richer our history becomes. Even time, which takes so much from us, can give something back in the form of understanding, tenderness, and the kind of intimacy that cannot be manufactured overnight. Love may not be exempt from the laws of physics, darling, but it seems determined to make its own argument against the idea that everything meaningful must eventually decay.

And so it will be with us, I hope. Our love will grow in depth and meaning as the years pass. Our hearts will continue finding their way toward one another, sometimes leaping before looking, perhaps, but always learning how to grow together. Like a seed that knows, without possessing a scientific understanding of botany, to reach toward the light, we will discover what we need in order to flourish. We will have our sunshine and our moonlight, our seasons of growth and our seasons of rest. We will learn that love is not merely a feeling we stumble upon, but something we nurture, protect, and choose again and again.

And perhaps, one day, we will do what lovers throughout history have done when they discover a treasure they cannot bear to lose. Perhaps we will confront our insecurities and our fears. Perhaps we will dare to defy the lessons of our pasts and reach for one another with the most memorable and romantic of all human promises:

Marriage. There. I have said it without fainting, running for the hills, or requesting immediate legal counsel.

Because this love feels so alive, so special, so urgent, and so wonderfully right. It feels natural. It feels as though something that has been waiting patiently for us has finally found its moment. Dare I say it feels destined? I suspect it does. And if we are indeed being held in the steady palm of destiny's hand, as I rather suspect we are, then I can imagine only one glorious conclusion for us.

For the sun and the moon are a pair, two celestial bodies belonging to the same magnificent universe. They are different in their natures, different in their rhythms, and different in the ways they illuminate the world. Yet each has its place in the great dance of existence. Neither needs to become the other to make the heavens complete.

And perhaps that is what we are discovering, my darling. We need not be identical to belong together. We need not have lived the same number of years, traveled the same roads, or learned our lessons in the same way. We need only to keep turning toward one another, with honesty, tenderness, and the courage to believe that what we are building is worth the risk. Sometimes I think that what we are hearing is the strong, persistent throbbing of a single heart, beating beneath two very different lives.

So keep listening, my love. Mine beats for you.

And I will always need the calm, the mystery, and the quiet beauty of the moon. I will need your steadiness, your intelligence, your kindness, and that wonderful voice that somehow manages to reach me even when you are far away. I can only hope that you will always need my warmth, my laughter, my occasional silliness, and my light with the same urgency.

I cannot promise that we will never be afraid. I cannot promise that the road will always be easy. But I can promise that I am willing to stop guarding my heart against the possibility of happiness simply because I have known sorrow before. I am willing to believe in us.

And today, tomorrow, and for all the days we are fortunate enough to share, I want us to remember this: The future may be uncertain. The distance may be great. The risks may be real. But love is worth the leap. Believe in that today, my darling, and always.

Our love will win.

Always,

Your poet

The Gods Are Dancing by Devi Nina Bingham

 Hindu Goddess Kali doing the Tandava (dance of creation, preservation, and destruction)

You gently tap, tap

and whisper my name

uncharted territory with no map

but I rise for you just the same.

A pop and hip-hop fusion

is happening tonight

love's revolution

and I'm flying as high as a kite.

Your embrace leaves me free

dancing to a beat that only we can see

no words are necessary

when your spirit enters me.

You're answering my body's beat

the best partner ever!

I'll try not to step on your feet

though I'm feeling as light as a feather.

For as long as this music lasts,

keep asking me to dance.

Until The Separation Is Done by Devi Nina Bingham

Hey love, I am calling once more

as you sleep far away

as I walk the ocean shore

maybe you'll dream that we meet halfway.

For my heart has abandoned me for you

and refuses to listen

because with you it found the prettiest view

while with me it is in prison. 

Take care of my heart, love

and bring it back soon

because these two hearts fit like gloves

and without you, I am doomed.

These two hearts that once were one

have never forgotten, hon

and won't let us rest

until the separation is done.

My Darling by Devi Nina Bingham

My Darling,

There are many endearments I enjoy calling you, but none more satisfying than darling, for the word harkens to a different time in history, to the golden age of our grandparents, when sweethearts addressed the object of their affection in ways that left no room for ambiguity. If you were someone's darling, no one doubted that you were chosen and cherished. You were taken, nearly possessed, whether by a lover or by a parent who saw you as the apple of their eye. There was no doubt that you were special, coveted, and held apart from the ordinary world when someone called you darling.

And so, I begin this letter by demonstrating that same devotion, as well as my intent to make you the sole object of my affection. Thus, you are my darling. The word is yours now, as surely as if I had taken it from some forgotten age and placed it gently in your hands. I offer it not casually, as one might scatter pretty words into the air, but with the solemn tenderness of someone who understands that certain words, once spoken, become a kind of vow.

And I am writing a letter instead of a poem because I have amply used the device of rhyme and now seek another time-tested way to express what still hides in the recesses of my heart. A poem can make a beautiful prisoner of a feeling, fastening it to rhythm and rhyme until it gleams like a jewel beneath glass. But a letter allows feelings to wander. It permits a thought to enter the shadows, to linger where it pleases, and to reveal what it might otherwise keep concealed.

Why there are sentiments hidden even from my own conscious awareness is a mystery all artists seek to unlock and plunder. We venture into ourselves as though entering an ancient house after dark, carrying only the small and uncertain flame of our curiosity. Behind one door, we discover a memory we thought long dead. Behind another, a longing without a name. And sometimes, in the deepest room, we encounter a truth that has been waiting patiently for us, as though it knew we would come at last.

Perhaps that is what I am doing now, my darling: entering those dim chambers of the heart in search of the words that I have yet learned to speak. Even after all the poems I have written, I suspect there are still secret passages within me, and that you, without even knowing it, have become the reason I wish to find them.

The heart readily gives up its secrets when touched by true love; it awaits the kiss of its rescuer before divulging its deepest, most tender and fragile elements. These hidden treasures are what I wish to divulge so that we may both better understand the miracle that is love. For this love is clothed in layers of garments, hand-sewn by passions and griefs old and new, each stitch becoming a new memory, each fold a sorrow carried so long that it has almost forgotten the shape of its own nakedness.

Love will disrobe only when it is safe, only when we do not demand it, only when it has been wooed by the many assurances, shown repeatedly, that it is beautiful just as it is. It must be approached with tenderness, as one might approach a frightened creature, lest the slightest movement send it fleeing into the shadows. For love knows its own imperfections more closely and urgently than anyone. It has studied them in secret, held them up to the merciless light of memory, and feared that another pair of eyes might discover what it has spent a lifetime trying to conceal.

Only when it has come to trust the hands reaching toward it will its defensive layers be discarded upon the floor, one by one, so that love's whole self may be seen in the clear light of day. What a solemn and beautiful moment to stand before another soul without the protection of our histories, without the elaborate disguises we have fashioned to survive the world, and to discover that we are still desired, still cherished, still worthy of tenderness.

And that kind of love, stripped of its defenses and fears, is what inspires all artists and lovers. We spend our lives searching for the truth beneath appearances, longing to glimpse the hidden face beneath the mask. Perhaps this is why we paint, why we write, and why we reach for one another in the quiet hours when the world has finally fallen silent. We are searching for what cannot be manufactured or imitated: the naked and unguarded truth of another human being.

For a nude body is infinitely more interesting and fragile than a body heaped up with explanations, excuses, and convoluted stories. The naked form has no argument to make and no defense to offer. It simply exists, beautiful in its vulnerability, carrying the evidence of a life that has been lived. And so it is with the heart. Once its garments have fallen away, we no longer see the person it has struggled to become; we see the person who has been waiting all along to be loved.

As I peer into my soul at the love that stands naked and unashamed before you, I am struck first by the realization that it is neither a he nor a she, but a whole—something that cannot be explained sufficiently by either male or female energies, nor by hard or soft, nor assertive or passive, nor by one quality or its opposite. It belongs to neither side, and yet it belongs to both, as though these opposing forces have finally found a place where they may lay down their weapons and live together in peace.

This love embodies both moods, as the day displays both light and dark. It possesses the fierce brilliance of the sun and the quiet mysteries of the moon, the courage to advance and the wisdom to retreat, the hunger to claim, and the tenderness of release. It is not divided against itself, and it is made more complete by its contradictions.

This love will be both for you. It will undoubtedly rush you, push you, and persuade you, carried by the force of its own desire; but it will also defer to your wishes and regard the smallest peculiarities of your personality as precious and worthy of praise. It will notice the little things you may scarcely recognize in yourself—the peculiar turn of a phrase, the unexpected tilt of your head, and the small habits you have never thought to explain. And it will cherish them, not despite their oddity, but because they are yours.

This love is like the sun and the moon, who coexist peacefully as one opposite yet complementary unit. Each possesses a beauty the other cannot imitate, and neither must surrender its nature for the two to share the heavens. The sun does not resent the moon's darkness, nor does the moon ask the sun to soften its fire. They take turns illuminating the world, and in their separate hours, each makes the other more beautiful.

So my love for you is not one-sided but diverse and versatile. It will not approach you with only one face, but with many, depending upon what expression will most surprise and delight you. At times it will be bold enough to sweep you into its arms before you have found the words to answer. At others, it will sit quietly beside you, asking nothing, content merely to share the same small kingdom of silence. It may arrive as laughter, as tenderness, as an argument made passionately and then abandoned for a kiss. It may be a fire one evening and a candle burning quietly beside your bed the next.

This is not a simple love, my darling. It is as infinitely complex as you are. It contains its own mysteries, its own changing seasons, its own strange and beautiful contradictions. I do not wish to reduce it to a single definition, for I fear that in naming it too narrowly, I might imprison something that was born to be free.

I would rather let you discover it slowly, as one discovers a hidden garden behind an old stone wall: one flower today, another tomorrow, and beyond them, always, another path leading into the unknown. For the more deeply I look into this love, the more I understand that it is not a thing I will ever finish creating. It is a living universe, and somehow, impossibly, it has chosen you as the place where it wishes to unfold.

This naked love is neither jealous nor permissive. It understands that love must offer both freedom and shelter, that a heart cannot flourish if it is forever watched, nor can it feel secure if it is left entirely to the mercy of the world.

When you leave to spread your wings, I will be delighted to see you go, for I know you will return to me more whole and free than when you left. I will watch you rise into the vastness of the sky, carrying my affection with you like a secret sewn into the lining of your coat. I will not mistake your flight for abandonment, nor your curiosity for a lack of devotion. I will understand that some journeys must be taken alone if we are to discover what we are capable of becoming.

And should you wander farther than the borders of our love can comfortably bear, I will gently but firmly invite you back inside the gate. Not to imprison you, nor to clip the beautiful wings that carried you there, but to remind you that even the wildest creature needs a place where it may rest without fear. I shall protect what is precious between us from the elements, tending to it with the vigilance of a gardener who knows that even the most resilient flowers require shelter from certain storms.

And this delicate dance of yours and mine I will navigate carefully, very carefully, so that you always feel the shelter of my love without mistaking it for a cage. I want you to feel its boundaries as you might feel the walls of a beloved home: not as barriers against the world, but as assurances that there is a place where you are known, welcomed, and cherished.

For I wish to satisfy your soul's curiosity and its need to explore and grow, not diminish them. I want the world to enlarge you, to fill your mind with wonders and your heart with new discoveries, so that when you return to me, you bring back the treasures you have gathered along the way. And I want to be equally free to wander, to grow, and to return to you with my own handful of wonders.

Perhaps this is the truest intimacy: not two souls bound together so tightly that neither can breathe, but two souls who know the way home, who can venture into the darkness without fearing that the light has been extinguished, and who choose, again and again, to meet at the same gate—not because either has been commanded to return, but because love has made returning a joy.

This more exposed version of me is privy to your judgments alone. Thus, I will say outrageous things I would never utter in polite company and air my fears and insecurities, which is both a privilege and a burden. There is an intimate freedom in being seen without the protection of one's finest manners, without the careful arrangement of words that makes us acceptable to the world. Here, with you, I may allow the unruly thoughts to escape, the embarrassing truths to rise from their hiding places, and the tenderest parts of myself to stand in the light without immediately reaching for a veil.

You will come to know this unapologetic me, who is more truthful and less bashful. You will see the woman beneath the polished sentences, the one who sometimes contradicts herself, who can be both formidable and foolish, wise in one moment and astonishingly naïve in the next. You will admire my strengths and pity my weaknesses, and you will be certain there is nobody more consequential to me than you—nobody who could ruin me like you if she tried.

What a terrifying privilege it is to place such power in another person's hands. To love is to surrender the map to the secret country of oneself, revealing every hidden passage, every tender place, every wall erected after some earlier sorrow. You will come to know every crack and bulwark in me as intimately as a well-traveled road. You will learn where I am strongest, where I am easily wounded, and where a careless word might reach the little girl I have spent a lifetime protecting.

But because you know me so thoroughly, I trust that you will protect my vulnerabilities and spare me the humiliation of contradiction. You will understand that there are days when my bravado is merely a curtain drawn over my fear, and that beneath some of my fiercest declarations lies a heart hoping you will stay. You will know when to challenge me and when to take my hand; when to laugh at my extravagance and when to recognize the small, trembling truth concealed beneath it.

Some days you will treasure the access and influence your presence carries, marveling that another human being has permitted you to enter so far into the private chambers of her soul. Other days, you may wonder what you got yourself into. I can hardly blame you. I am not always an easy country to inhabit. There are storms here, and unexpected detours, and the occasional volcano that erupts over something as insignificant as a misplaced word. I can be gloriously unreasonable, and I make no promise that loving me will always be a peaceful occupation.

But I am certain that at all times you will go on cherishing me, as I will you, my darling. Not because we will always agree, nor because we will never disappoint one another, but because we will have learned the difference between a person's imperfections and the worth of the person herself.

To be known so completely and loved still—to have one's secrets discovered and one's defenses understood, yet remain precious in another's eyes—is perhaps the rarest form of intimacy. I offer you that privilege, and I accept its burden. You shall have the unvarnished truth of me, my darling, and I shall endeavor to hold yours with the same tenderness.

For once I have entrusted you with the hidden architecture of my heart, I do not wish you to become its master. I wish you to become its most faithful guardian. And I promise to be yours.

And finally, this enduring love will weather the seasons as they change, both in nature and in the private communion of our lives. Time will march relentlessly upon us, as it does upon all living things, and we will become two increasingly fragile and needy people, leaning upon the kindness that has come to define our relationship. Perhaps this is one of love's greatest transformations: that what begins as desire may, with the passing years, become tenderness so deeply rooted that neither time nor circumstance can easily disturb it.

We will certainly grieve as, one by one, we release the pleasures and freedoms that once defined our youth. There will be things our bodies no longer permit us to do, adventures we must remember rather than undertake, and small liberties we once took for granted that will become precious precisely because they are no longer ours. We will have to make our peace with the vulgarities of aging—with its indignities, its absurdities, and its occasional insistence upon reminding us that we are not nearly as immortal as we once imagined.

But I hope we will laugh. Oh, my darling, I hope we will laugh! We will laugh at ourselves and with one another, with a playfulness that perhaps eluded us in our younger years, when we took our appearances too seriously and our imperfections as evidence of some private failure. We will discover the comedy in our creaking joints, our fading memories, our stubborn vanities, and the ridiculous things we may do in an effort to persuade the world that we remain unchanged. And when one of us forgets why she entered a room, perhaps the other will invent a magnificent reason for having gone there in the first place.

For I want us to grow old without growing solemn about it, to meet the absurdities of our declining years with affection rather than shame. Let the world demand dignity from us if it must. Between ourselves, we shall have the greater luxury of being human.

And as the years pass, we will come to cherish in each other those qualities that do not fade with the skin or surrender to the calendar. We will recognize the familiar light in one another's eyes, the humor that survives disappointment, the tenderness that deepens through hardship, and the peculiar ways our minds continue to surprise and delight each other. These are the treasures that time cannot easily diminish. They are not skin-deep, nor can they be measured by the standards of youth. They belong to something far more enduring.

Perhaps this, too, is a kind of passion—a passion that has traveled beyond the body without abandoning it, that has learned to see beauty where the world may see only age. It is the desire to know you more intimately with every passing year, to discover that beneath the changing face I have loved, there remains the same extraordinary soul. And I hope you will find in me that same enduring wonder: not a woman preserved against time, but one who has lived, changed, suffered, laughed, and become more fully herself.

For when youth has loosened its hold upon us, my darling, I want us to discover that love has not diminished. It has simply changed its language. What once spoke through longing and the fever of desire will speak through patience, through the gentle hand extended in the night, through the laughter we share over some private foolishness, and through the quiet certainty that neither of us must face the years alone.

And if the body becomes a more fragile dwelling, let us make the soul a warmer home. Let us grow old together not merely as two people who have endured the passage of time, but as two lovers who have learned, at last, how beautiful it is to be known, to be needed, and to be cherished long after the world has stopped looking.

And we will learn to communicate through glances and small acts of kindness, speaking less as the years pass, for a shared history becomes its own language, a silent knowing that requires no explanation. You will understand the meaning of my look before I have found the words to express it, and I will recognize the unspoken question in your eyes. A hand resting upon a shoulder, a cup of tea placed within reach, a blanket drawn gently over sleeping feet—these will become our conversations, intimate exchanges in a language only we have learned to speak. How extraordinary that, after a lifetime of searching for the right words, we may discover that the deepest truths have always lived in the silence between them.

And so we will accompany our ramshackle bodies and our once-sharp, now somewhat weary intellects toward that final door through which every mortal must eventually pass. I imagine we will approach it with apprehension, certainly, but also with the private humor that has sustained us through so much. Perhaps we will even find something ridiculous to laugh about at the threshold, for I cannot imagine that death, with all its solemn grandeur, could entirely silence our irreverence.

But we will refuse to say goodbye.

Instead, we will say, I will see you soon.

Those words will have to carry everything our hearts cannot bear to speak: the gratitude, the sorrow, the terror of separation, and the faith—however small, however trembling—that love has not brought us this far merely to abandon us at the edge of the unknown.

One of us will go ahead into the Great Mystery, while the other remains behind, keeping our shared memories as a vigil. The one who stays will carry the light of our life together through the long rooms of absence, finding you in familiar places, in the habits we fashioned together, in a passing scent, a remembered laugh, or the sudden recollection of something you once said that seemed insignificant at the time but now shines like a small jewel rescued from the darkness.

There will be days when the silence is unbearable. There will be moments when I reach for you before remembering that you are no longer beside me, and nights when the bed seems impossibly wide. Yet I will keep our memories close, not as relics of a life that has ended, but as living things entrusted to my care. I will speak to you when no one is listening. I will tell you what has happened since you left, what I have learned, what I have feared, and all the foolish little things I know you would have found amusing.

And somewhere beyond my reach, I will imagine you listening.

For that is what you have always done, my darling. You have listened as though my words possessed some secret worth discovering, as though even my most meandering thoughts deserved the courtesy of your attention. You have made me feel that I could speak without hurrying, that I could wander through the corridors of my mind and return with whatever treasures or nonsense I happened to find. What a rare gift it is to be heard in this way—to have another person receive not only the words we speak, but the person we are while speaking them.

And I will count the minutes until they become days, the days until they become months, and the months until they become years. Time will continue its indifferent march, but beneath its passing I will keep faith with our promise. I will imagine that you, too, are counting—not because eternity is a prison, but because even eternity might seem incomplete without the one whose presence made the ordinary world so astonishingly dear.

And then, at last, when my own journey through this life has reached its end, I will come looking for you.

I like to imagine that we have already chosen the place where our souls will rendezvous in the next world. Perhaps it is a garden beneath an unfamiliar sky, or a little house with blue doors and flowers climbing the walls, or a quiet shore where the water carries the last light of day. Wherever it is, I hope you will be waiting there, wearing that expression I know so well—the one that says you have a thousand questions and are perfectly willing to let me begin.

For we will have so much to tell each other.

I will want to know what you discovered while I was away, what mysteries you have solved, what wonders you have seen. I will bring you every story I collected in your absence, every thought I saved for you, every small revelation that seemed incomplete until I could place it in your hands. And you will listen as you always have, with that captivating attention that made even my simplest words feel worth the telling.

Perhaps the Great Mystery will reveal that love was never merely the brief arrangement of two lives upon this earth. Perhaps it was always a promise made in a language older than time, one that neither age nor distance nor death could persuade us to forget.

Until then, my darling, I will love you here, in this imperfect world, through every season it allows us. And when the final door opens, I will not call it goodbye.

I will simply take your hand and say, I told you, I will see you soon.

And so, my darling, though we discovered each other in the twilight of our lives, in the winter rather than the spring, I believe we shall be far happier than most can ever claim. For what we have found is not diminished by the lateness of its arrival. If anything, it is made more precious by the years that preceded it, by all the roads we traveled, the sorrows we survived, and the loves that taught us what was most prescious and we cannot live without.

For we are weaving a coat from many colors and each thread will be dyed in a different shade of love. Some colors will be bright with laughter and desire; others will be darkened by sorrow, softened by tenderness, or made radiant by the simple miracle of being understood. Together, they will become something neither of us could have woven alone: a garment fashioned from our separate histories and the life we have chosen to share.

And it will keep us warm and protected through all the seasons to come. When winter settles around us, we will draw it close. When spring returns, we will wear it lightly, grateful for the warmth it offered us. And when we can no longer remember every road that brought us here, we will still recognize the colors, for each one will remind us of something we have given, something we have received, and something we became together.

Forever, 

Your Poet

Better Half by Devi Nina Bingham

I don't want to lose you

I don't want you walking away

How do I show you what words can never say?

Maybe matching tatoos?

For us, one thing will ever be true

we are two halves of a whole, always.

I don't want to lose you

I don't want you walking away.

Until we are together, we will make do

I am willing to meet you halfway

and choose you new each day

my better half in a heart that goes two ways.

I don't want to lose you.

My better half,

I don't want you walking away. 

Love Drunk by Devi Nina Bingham

 

Sleepless, I reach for you

I cannot even eat

Gone is the life that I once knew.

Love left a bewitching brew

That tastes impossibly sweet

And I drank enough for two.

We are both love drunk, so enjoy the view

To hell with being discreet

Riding this intoxicating corkscrew.

And suddenly, I am a teen at the drive-through

making out in the back seat

'Cause passion feels brand new.

Tell me, what did you do

When you walked down my street?

I am enjoying being a drunken fool.

So come out, put down your tools

Pour a drink and pull up a seat

When you are in love, there are no rules

I am love drunk over a rare and precious jewel.

Gone is the life I once knew

No sleep nor food for either of us two

For we are love drunk

and this is only the preview. 

Breathe With You by Devi Nina Bingham

Let me breathe with you

let me look into your eyes

let me hold you through

the good days, and even your demise.

We will explore the mountaintops

and when you're sick, I will be your nurse

hold my hand when you are lost

and together we'll conquer this universe.

My home is wherever you are

whether you are near or far.

I will be your might

and you will be my song

when the day turns to night

and you need me to be strong

I will breathe with you

and look into your eyes

if you let me hold you through

the good days, and even your demise.

Until the sun goes down

babe, I will be around

to breathe with you. 

The Engineer and the Poet by Devi Nina Bingham

Two lovers misunderstand each other;

the engineer and the poet.

One speaks a mechanical language of structure,

the other sings a rhyming sonnet.

And while their perceptions are a world apart,

they can learn to see through the other's eyes,

and share a single burning heart,

and drink the wine of love, life's only prize.

Give me your eyes with which to see the world;

I want to learn everything of you.

For into this strange affair we have been hurled

and I want to know you through and through.

Isn't the thinker and the artist,

when blended together, the smartest? 

I Can't Breathe by Devi Nina Bingham

I am surrounded by you

the four cardinal directions

the fire, the water, the sky so blue

even the earth plays with my affections.

The air that sustains me

is the tender breath you exhale.

I can only make an empassioned plea:

my heart is whole wherever yours dwells. 

All I know is that without you, I can't breathe

and for you, the stars are singing as I stand beneath.

Devastated by Devi Nina Bingham

Devastating you

devastated me

a devastating brew

I drank as a bewitching tea.

Devastating and

unforgettable

is all my eyes can see.

Are you a fiction or a fable?

Can I believe the words you say?

Will you fly to me someday?

And in my arms will you stay?

You've stolen my heart away.

I am saving you the ocean view,

because I am completely devastated by you. 

Night Jasmine by Devi Nina Bingham

Could you be any more right for me,

like God thought it through and said,

"I will make her a mystery, so my need to know is fed.

I want to explore you through and through

I cannot resist a fire that burns

reaching out curiosity's hand

to one as intriguing as you.

Because your puzzle has made me yearn

though this sweet detour was not planned.

I have spent so many days wishing I knew

then I saw that in a world of rules

a little mystery makes passion new

so my love for you never cools.

Clever, aren't you, to keep the truth from me

unfolding as darkness turns.

Never before have I seen

a flower given so freely.

And so I am the one who learns

from the night jasmine I hold in my hand.

House of the Rising Sun (Sestina Poem) by Devi Nina Bingham

My restless heart passed the time

waiting for the rising sun.

On it trudged, from night to day,

elusive was this mystery called love.

Holding my breath while others called it life,

wanting to feel a warmth within.

Denied was my longing for comfort within

like a rose crushed beneath cruel time.

I offered what was too fragile for life

and was burned by the cross and impatient sun. 

Still I persisted, pressing closer to love,

living to breathe the precious light of day.

Love ran away as I reached for the day,

and night became a frigid blanket within.

I forgot the graceful face of love

buried by the heavy hand of time.

Won't you break open my sorrow with the sun

and wash me in the glad tide of life?

Until your improbable face brought new life,

until you turned despair to day,

until the sky opened and revealed a kinder sun,

until you made a home within,

I only mistrusted time,

I only scoffed at love.

Now the miracle of love

has carried me to the fount of life

that springs eternal, beyond time

where the dark of night bows to the day.

I will meet you where joy dances within

in the house of the rising sun.

Meet me, won't you, beneath that sun

for when youth and beauty have forsaken love

I will not forsake promises spoken within

given when youth still decorated life.

Should darkest night eclipse the brightest day

I will not forget how you saved me from unforgiving time.

O, that I could give you all my time. 

I will never leave you, one day.

And we will rest forever in the tender arms of life. 

Above The Hurricane by Devi Nina Bingham

Don't go away; don't say goodbye.

Stay and let me look at you.

Don't run away when I gaze into your eyes.

Let me behold the morning's dew.

The road will still be there; you can go anytime,

only leave me with part of the pain.

Take my hand, and we will climb

above the hurricane.

In you I met fate's tender gaze

hidden in your enigmatic smile.

Not a spark of recognition, but a captivating blaze.

You made the wait worthwhile.

Take shelter in me, and I'll do the same.

Then all our searching won't be in vain

because together we rose above the hurricane. 

Open To Me by Devi Nina Bingham

What you don't want me to see,

what others did not adore,

open to me.

Though it isn't easy, and trust isn't free

like a frozen lock on a broken-down door,

open to me.

Though parts of us have unraveled at the seams

we reach for each other, evermore.

Open to me.

Let me catch you when you begin to lean.

When doubt awakens and begins to roar,

open to me.

Though love offers no guarantees, 

when your heart has reached my distant shore,

when I fall before you on bended knee,

will you open to me?

A Million Beats Away by Devi Nina Bingham

 

As my heart flies again, a million beats away,

I should be working, but my mind wanders to your

beauty incomparable, my devastating doomsday

your hopeful eyes lifting me above the shore.

Stunning and stunned is what we are. Love's promise

evermore calling my name and hers.

I could walk away from Fate's ravishing goddess

but now that I have seen her, common sense blurs.

You're a million beats away

as I reach for your embrace.

Take my hand in this crazy world of woe.

Don't either of us say things we cannot unsay

for heaven fell from the sky that day, and God's grace

took root and began to grow. Let's take this slow

when you are a million beats away.

The Badasses' Guide to Kali-FREE POETRY by Devi Nina Bingham

Finish Me

Caught in your sticky grasp like a bird in a thicket

you severed my heart from attachments I once knew

and with your lolling, red tongue you did lick it.

I welcomed your wrath against my foes

until you turned the swift blade too close to home

when you and I came to warring blows.

"I want my way," said my stubborn will. 

"I am grown up now, so I will decide!"

Then I strayed from love until I'd had my fill.

In a darkness beyond dark, in a profound and utter void

I was adrift at sea, as lonely as it was wide.

And I lifted my face to Heaven and cried:

"Without Thee, oh fiercesome warrior of old,

I have no anchor; I am wandering.

Return! Return will I to the fold.

And if you cut my pride, I shall surely bleed.

Better this than the life of a fool.

Come again at lightning speed,

and bring the sword that will finish me.

 

Mother Kali

Voo-doo

who-do

You-do

deserve it!

Say the magic words

to cast an ancient spell

feather of a mockingbird

and a rusty metal nail.

Some say she's a nerd,

some say she's from hell.

It depends on what you've heard-

others say that she's in jail.

The Hindus of old

worshiped Mother Kali

the Goddess of fright

can even make you feel jolly.

She wears her enemy's skulls

the foolhearted's folly

with her tongue she will bite,

pins and needles stab the dolly. 

Mother Kali, Mother Kali,

wielding her sword 

defiantly naked 

as cups of blood pour.

Run as fast as your legs can flee

yet to me, your devoted child

you are my consolation,

my protector run wild. 

Voo-doo

who-do

You-do

deserve it!

Mother Made of Lightning

My mother came to visit me in the night

silent and mysterious, She made me gasp.

The opposite of darkness, She is electric white light

fortunate for me She did not bring her asp.

Untouchable and terrible to those who mean you harm,

unpredictable, yet awesome if She is on your side.

To me she is a friend, though She always brings alarm.

She cannot be blamed if your circuits wind up fried.

A mother made of lightning, a bolt of beautiful death

makes sure that I'm protected

 until my very last breath. 

Snake Eyes

Snakes, snakes everywhere

around your waist

and in your hair

Goddesses are supposed to be

not warriors that growl and glare.

Your secret I have come to know

that God has made some women mean

who hunt down lies with arrows and a bow

but protect pure and trusting souls.

The leopard covering your skin

shows that you hunt in silent stealth.

The severed arms that reach your shins

and a garland of skulls where pearls should have been.

And the blood—oh, the gore!

Dripping from your gaping mouth,

a lolling tongue that asks for more,

it is demon's blood that you adore.

Why should I bow down in praise

and call you "Ma" like children do

when you leave me in a daze?

Because you lead me through life's crazy maze.

Not a Goddess for the weak, but the brave

who makes me say, "I can!" again and again. 

Your mission is always to save

so I do not care if you misbehave.

Dancing in the graveyard—that is Ma Kali

overflowing with electric vibe,

lightning and thunder are her folly.

You make me feel so alive

with your all-seeing snake eyes. 

Surrender (Haiku)

Goddess Kali loves like a mother:

thin on indulgence and thick on transforming power.

Just surrender—a mother is for life.

The Grim Reaper

She was the merciful mirror I needed

A mother made of highly polished metal

While most mothers are putting on the kettle

Kali Maa is setting me free

Not allowing me to settle.

She believes I deserve happiness and health

Divine success at lightening speed.

Unafraid to let me bleed,

She crushes my pride, a different kind of wealth. 

The Grim Reaper is She.

She eats egos while building self-esteem.

Her reflection is just and picture-perfect.

While it is hard to look at my defects,

She is polishing me so that I gleam.

Death is my architect.

So that new life can take root, flourish and grow

Self-deception must be taken away.

My heart is lighter since death came to stay.

My mother is terrible and wonderful, and I've got a new glow-

because that's how Kali Maa rolls. 

The Mother Made of Fire

I misunderstood the essence of you

Goddess Kali, who haunts cremation grounds

where the dead live and the living go to die

victorious over death!

You are mistress of the darkness

because you own it

and master of time because you made it.

Ever fearless in the face of threat

dancing in a frenzy atop a pile of bones

smearing the ash of strangers upon your black body

your maya entranced and fooled me,

making me shy to come closer.

A mother made of fire and fury

eating the souls of demons

drinking their blue blood and laughing.

Your liberating protection is only given

once your children have charred their egos

in the blaze of your obstinate and sure embrace.

Ma Kali, 

once I surrendered my will

you arrived unbidden upon my doorstep

in all your eternal and cosmic glory.

Jai Ma Kali-

eternal victor

fiercely gracious,

my shadow

ever swooning me in your embrace,

please stay.

Unless She Grabs You

Who can know a warrior

an eternal, undefeatable foe?

The male ego forces its way

while your laugh bends steel,

and melts my defences

with a single glance. 

Entranced, wanting to be closer to Ka-li,

I crawl to Her feet.

She magnetizes and protects all sincere seekers.

You are the blood that courses through my veins,

the binder, and the releaser. 

Taking me beyond ancient myths,

the living, pulsating Light 

leads me to the highest peak. 

Few of your children will knock; 

only the brave, crazy ones 

who love your wild laugh and unbound hair

will scale the edge of sanity,

scrambling through the briar to find the graveyard

in which you expectantly wait, fierce and silent,

asking in a shaky voice,

"Are you my mother?"

You are a lightning strike, a live wire. 

When I approach, I must remember 

that this goddess is especially dreadful.

Do not take hold of Her unless She grabs you. 

So protective and possessive

that nobody can get within a thousand miles of me

unless She wills it.

She is that BIG--

and I am safe, held tightly

in all six of Her weapon-clad, skull-adorned arms. 

Read Nina's heartwarming story featured on 
Influential Women: 

CLICK HERE: Nina Bingham, MH - Boutique Publisher, Writing Coach, Author, and Blogger │ Influential Women

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Letter From a Departed Friend by Devi Nina Bingham

Where I live, God is everywhere. In the afterlife you have a spirit body, and this body has immense supernatural powers, meaning that you have divine powers of omniscience (all-knowing), omnipresence (cosmic circumnavigation and the ability to be many places at once), and the ability to bend time (slow or speed up). In addition, you can intuit feelings and thoughts. In essence, you become a mini god or goddess, which is why most souls elect to stay unborn, not to reincarnate. Wherever you turn here, there is proof of your divinity. If you were to say, "I do not believe in God," you would be taken to a hospital because something had gone very wrong! There is no question of whether God is or is not; you are a part of it. That would be like saying, "I do not believe that I exist." We live in completeness and wholeness, where questions have satisfactory answers, where there is no confusion or sorrow, and where proof of divine presence is everywhere. On earth, God's design can be seen in nature, such as in a tree (you can appreciate its magnificent design). Where I am, not only is the tree pleasing to look at, but it can also communicate. There is a common language, so there are no language barriers, and the natural world speaks clearly. 

On earth, scriptures belong to different religions, which is a misunderstanding. All knowledge belongs to all. Here there is no religion; no artificial boundaries exist. It does not matter what you once called yourself on earth; give yourself any silly title you wish, because it is not going to stick; you will not be carrying it here. Any force such as religion or government that tried to divide one from another has been abolished. I seldom quote anyone, but a scripture jumps to mind when I think about how I would describe Heaven: "...and three things remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love" (the Bible). Above all, these qualities survive the body and are the very atmosphere that we breathe. On earth, love is confined narrowly to parental love, familial love, love for your partner, etc. Beyond this, it is difficult to love, for love is a feeling of affection. I do not mean physical affection, but a warm feeling and goodwill. You do not generate affection for a stranger; that would be untoward. However, the more time you spend with the divine, the more you find yourself embodying divine feelings and characteristics. You develop wider feelings of affection for complete strangers, your neighbors, etc. You have waves of affection for all of nature because you are able to see into them. You will not only see their form but will also understand their true natures. 

Let me give an example. The author hated snakes; she was terrified of them, which is understandable. She would see a picture of a snake and could not look at it because what she saw was a slithery, slimy, evil creature. However, the truth is that snakes are innocent. They only strike when stepped on or if they feel threatened. You would do the same if some giant were to step on you! They are only defending themselves. But the author could not trust them because her genetics, passed down from ancient times, told her to fear them. The same is true of spiders and other venomous creatures; your ancient ancestors learned to fear them, and this fear was passed to you genetically. Recently she encountered two snakes within a few feet. Normally, she would have jumped in the air and run away screaming. But because she had been immersed in the Other Side's energy of love and acceptance, she did not run away. She had no adverse reaction. Instead, she felt a curiosity and said aloud, "Oh look, a snake!" and she stayed to watch it wriggle away. This was a novel response, one she had never experienced before. Instead of fear, she felt a mild feeling of surprise and a calm interest. This change happened because she has been bathing in waves of acceptance, the atmosphere of heaven. She has also been experiencing feelings of warmth toward strangers, which confused her. This warming-up process is happening within her because love is a powerful energy. It is a big heater that melts you. The more you bathe in its warm, soothing waters, the more love you have to give, even to strangers, even to nature. I mention this because love is not only for the narrow category of those who love you. Real love, unselfish love, loves everyone. Where I am, if my parents were to visit me, I would not feel more love for them simply because they were my parents. Why? Though I appreciate that they played their part in my story, I am no longer that woman, so I no longer feel indebted to them. Plus, feelings of love have no boundaries here. I feel the same all-encompassing love for a blade of grass as I do for the souls that once played a part in my life's drama. 

Unless and until you come to the point where all are loved by you equally, you have more spiritual work to do. Can unconditional love really be realized on earth? Absolutely. And it has a name: enlightenment, or self-realization. And this superior spiritual condition is what you should be striving for. The Buddha called it "Nirvana," or "non-attachment." When you are not attached, you do not favor one over another. You are in a state of blissful equanimity. You may experience sadness when someone passes, but you recognize it for what it is: that person's passage back to energy, the astral body. The person is not gone, only in a better form and in a better place. To attain this blissful oneness, this unity takes lifetimes of spiritual practice. However, some are graced; they are given this experience without earning it. The majority, however, will earn it through a process of crushing the ego. And what is the ego except for the persistence of the "I"? "I" is desire, the opposite of non-attachment. So you see, you have more work to do, and love is the only destination. You are love, even now, though many days you will not feel loving. That is ok—still, you are That. You have always been That, and will return to That. Love is your essence. At the end of life you will look back as I have done and see that there are only three things that you could take with you: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.

Nina's Amazon Page: www.amazon.com/author/ninabingham