Love Is water Meant to Be Free

Love is not a fist,
not a door bolted from inside,
not a cage made of Gold
by the trembling hands of desire.

Love is water
resting in the open palm —
clear, breathing, alive,
trusting the kindness of space.

Hold it gently,
and it stays like a small sky
between your fingers,
a blue silence shining in your hand.

But close your hand,
claim it, command it,
call it mine too loudly —
and it escapes through every wound of possession.

This is how love teaches us:
not by staying where it is trapped,
but by leaving the hand
that forgot how to remain open.

Let the one you love
walk with their own wind.
Let their soul keep its windows,
its distance, its morning, its wings.

Give,
but do not count the return.
Speak,
but do not chain your words into orders.

Ask,
but do not demand.
Care,
but do not make your caring a prison.

For love is not less
because it is free.
The river does not become yours
because you stand beside it and thirst.

The moon does not belong to the sea,
yet every night
it lays its silver body
upon the waves.

So let love be like that —
near, luminous, unowned;
a presence that blesses,
not a hand that holds too hard.

And when someone you love
chooses their own road,
do not call it betrayal;
perhaps it is only the soul remembering the sky.

Life is not measured
by the breaths we gather,
but by those sudden moments
when beauty steals the breath from us.

Love freely.
Live softly.
Let every heart you touch
remain its own.

For what is truly loved
does not need to be possessed —
it returns, like fragrance,
to the open Air.

~ Andy Lal