[Poetry Friday] All I Know About Love–Neil Gaiman

Fats here.

Last week, a friend from work celebrated her 30th birthday. Like me, she is a fan of Neil Gaiman. As part of her birthday gift, her family offered her a MasterClass with Neil Gaiman himself! MasterClass offers online classes for students of all skill levels. My friend, who is almost finished writing the draft of her novel, has been enjoying her online writing classes taught by Neil Gaiman. How cool is that!

For today’s Poetry Friday, as a late birthday treat for my friend, I’m sharing a wedding poem by Neil Gaiman, which he read for his friends on their wedding party. He had written the poem the morning of the wedding. This is poem is new to me, and I’m glad I found it in the depths of the Internet.

Visit Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe for the Poetry Friday round-up.

All I Know About Love

for Sxip Shirey and Coco Karol

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I’ve learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another
hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.

It’s not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it’s what they mean.
Somebody’s got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn’t want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.

It’s not two broken halves becoming one.
It’s the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home
because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours,
and it’s a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that’s all I know about love.