The Greatest Romance: A Poem & A Word

I’m just a girl,
Standing in front of a boy,
Asking him to love her.
Oh, how many times,
Have I found myself asking the same thing,
As Julia Robert’s character,
In Notting Hill?
 
Overtly.
Secretly.
 
To the guys who knew I existed,
To the ones who didn’t.
 
Only to be disappointed,
Like someone painstakingly,
Putting together a fifteen hundred-piece puzzle,
Only to find the last piece missing.
 
When they weren’t as sensitive as Sam Colson,
Unwilling to see beyond my Josie Geller wrapping.
They didn’t care that I’d Never Been Kissed.
Sierra Burgess is a Loser,
And so was I.
 
We,
Sierra and I,
Are two of a kind,
Sunflowers,
Wishing we could change,
Into roses,
In order to be picked,
By All the Boys We’ve Ever Loved Before.
 
But even Sierra Burgess,
Lara Jean,
Dani Barnes,
Samantha Baker,
Laney Boggs,
Achieved a feat I never did.
They were chosen.

By the Jamey’s,
The Peter Kavinsky’s,
The Cameron Drake’s,
The Jake Ryan’s,
The Zack Siler’s,
That only existed in the movies.
 
The boys I pinned for,
Were Landon Carter’s,
Before Jaime Sullivan and the conversion,
Who took me on walks,
Down paths of rejection,
I’d remember for the rest of my life.
 
Walks that reinforced,
What I subconsciously thought about myself.
I wasn’t good enough,
Pretty enough,
Smart enough,
Popular enough,
To be chosen.
 
But can I blame them,
For not choosing me?
Can I blame them for seeing,
Through my façade to the truth,
That I had not yet acknowledged?
 
I was broken,
Looking for someone to fix me,
To rescue me.
My Richard Gere,
With his body sticking out of the limousine,
Flowers in hand,
Barreling down the street to confess his love to me,
And tell me I’m a Pretty Woman.
 
So I could appropriate my value,
My worth,
My identity,
My self-esteem,
By attaching myself to him.

Yes, I was glass,
Broken into a hundred pieces,
On the floor,
Trampled on and carried away,
On the bottom of countless shoes.
 
But where was my Rashad,
In the ATL?
My Lucky,
Poetic Justice.
 
The romances I watched,
Told me I would be okay,
If I could just be chosen.
 
I needed to be chosen!
 
And when I was green,
Rose colored glasses still being a thing,
Hoping the romances I watched,
Would become #reality,
He walked into my life,
And chose me.
 
Oh, how I would love to tell you,
That it was A Cinderella Story,
And him and I rode off into the sunset,
In a sky-blue GT Mustang Convertible,
Like Sam and Austin Ames.
 
But that would be a lie.
A fairytale,
Like all of the romances,
That cultivated my idea of love.
 
After finally being chosen,
I quickly learned that men,
Like Noah Calhoun,
Are relegated to the The Notebook,
They originated from.

 
Because I didn’t know Love,
I couldn’t recognize it,
I couldn’t receive it,
I couldn’t choose it.
So I chose Love’s counterfeit,
And Love’s counterfeit chose me.
 
Ours wasn’t a storybook romance,
But a tragedy.
Like Sid & Nancy,
Romeo & Juliet.
And the one who died,
Was me.
 
It was a long, slow, degrading death.
With every compromise,
Every lie,
Every betrayal,
He and I took turns,
Pummeling the remaining,
Pieces of glass into tiny shards.
 
Until I, like Natalie, was no more.
And he, like Keith, was gone.
 
I found myself alone and afraid,
In the desert,
A foreign land,
Dry, acrid, hot, barren,
On my back,
Immobile.
 
The emptiness, a bottomless pit,
A wet towel over my face,
Water boarded by the,
Muck and mire of my soul,
My screams silent and muffled,
My end inevitable.
 
Until I remembered Him.
The One I learned about in Sunday school.
The One I asked to be my Lord & Savior,
In middle school,
Without comprehending what I had done,
And what it truly meant.

 
The One I knew of,
But never really knew,
As I got older.
The One I picked up when I needed,
And laid down when I didn’t.
The One I thought was far off,
Until I instinctively whispered His name.
 
Jesus.
Here I am.
Help me.
 
And there He was.
I could see Him,
In the darkness with me.
He didn’t have to come.
He had been there all along,
Pursuing me,
Waiting for me to call out for Him.
 
There, on the desert floor,
He knelt down,
And pulled me close.
 
My Beloved,
He whispered so gently.
Hear My words,
For they are true,
I. choose. you.
 
Before the foundation of the world,
I chose you.
I created you for Myself,
My most-prized possession.
I laid down My life for you.
 
 
I, being King of kings,
Lord of lords,
Humbled Myself,
And came to earth in flesh,
Making Myself of no reputation,
Taking the form of a servant.

 Because My Father and I so loved you,
He sent Me to save you.
And I was obedient,
Even to the point of death.
 
I didn’t run as they came to arrest Me.
I proffered no rebuttal as they accused Me of blasphemy,
As they castigated Me,
Mocked Me.
 
I endured as they stripped Me of My clothes,
And whipped Me as My flesh was ripped from My body.
I endured for you,
As they spit in My face,
Plucked the hairs from My beard,
Punched Me,
Taunting Me to prophesy who hit Me.
 
I put up no fight as they placed Me on the cross,
And nailed Me in place.
I remained on that cross when I could no longer breathe,
My love for you keeping me there.
 
And as the end drew near,
With you in My mind’s eye,
I gave up Myself,
All that I had,
My very life,
So I could spend now and all of eternity,
Loving you,
And you loving Me.
 
-The King of Love Chose Me