Member-only story
Beware the Withholder
A Poem
Withholding is a difficult pattern to live with,
And apparently, to break.
I don’t know where it comes from.
Imitation, perhaps? Protection, more likely.
It’s difficult to continue to shower love upon
The withholder, who is perpetually wearing
A Teflon raincoat and holding an umbrella.
Every ounce of love falls to the ground,
Unabsorbed, often unappreciated,
Certainly, unreturned.
If we come from love and return to love,
We are also here to love and be loved,
And so, withholding makes no sense.
It is the mark of a coward with a capital “C”.
Although, once, I felt compassion.
Everyone deserves to love and be loved.
Now, after so long, the withholder’s
Stance, his (or her) lack of action,
Appears stubbornly irrational,
His shield pathetically transparent.
The Emperor wears no clothes.
Like the withholder,
I now reject every attempt …
To withhold.
I turn and embrace the rain.
