A Relationship Is Like a House

[Teratogen]

A Relationship Is Like a House

A relationship is like a house—
it has to be able to provide shelter
for its cohabitants.

It must have a strong foundation;
solid, sturdy and stable,
firm, durable, and healthy;
it must be unyielding,
even against
the most unforgiving
economic crises of the heart.

It must be insured
and protected
against inevitable natural disasters;
melancholic flood damage,
resentful fire damage,
forsaken drought damage,
confrontational storm damage,
confusing tornado damage,
insensitive blizzard damage,
unreasoning earthquake damage,
overbearing heat wave damage,
despondent landslide damage,
and irrepressible volcanic explosion damage,
collapsing into a limnic eruption,
causing an epidemic of famine,
are just a few
possible reasons for indemnification.

It requires maintenance,
including attention to expenditures
(for paying the price of such things
must never be neglected)
and sensible sanitation
to ensure an uncontaminated concord.

In most houses every room is easily accessible,
but sometimes, in some houses,
there may remain at least one locked door;
Sometimes a security system is employed.
Sometimes some of us may find
we have exploited
our clever crowbars
to the hinges,
attempting to force an entry
where we are not intended
to be.

Sometimes valuable time
has been exhausted
in our pursuit of these
fortified insecurities
that in due time
a natural disaster
is likelier to happen
than is actual entry.
Sometimes it is also likelier
we end up demolishing
our own houses
on the pretense that entry
is impossible;
that the house is no longer
habitable;
that it has been condemned.

Just because one room may not be entered
it is not reason enough
to demolish the entire house.

We may use clever means of entry,
But in our intelligence
Certainly a key could be found.

Sometimes refinancing the equity loan
or the mortgage,
or taking out a second mortgage
is what it will take to save the house.
Emotional investments must be reviewed
from time to time.

A relationship is like a house,
but it is hardly a relationship
until it becomes
a home.

[jabble524]

I really liked the parallel you made to a house- I thought that was a really clever way to describe a relationship. Also, the ending was well done, by switching house and home. Overall, excellent writing. However, I must disagree with the underlying philosophy of your poem. I think a relationship is a flame- wild, chaotic, free, spontaneous, unpredictable, etc. In this sense, I think a major fallacy is that many lovers try to make relationships a home, and ironically, often end up burning everything down. To love, is to trust someone enough to be completely vulnerable, and within the sanctuary of trust and vulnerability- two flames become one. Anyways, this is just my opinion. The definition of love resides in the eye of the beholder.

[Teratogen]

Were the definition of love to lie in the eye of the beholder then the definition would have to assume a physical and aesthetic role derived from empirical data. No such thing exists with love; at best they are illusions.

I would not ever argue that love is one thing and not another, so I could never agree that all love is like flame or fire. Your idea that making a relationship like a home can only end in the home's fiery destruction, I point back to the part of my poem that reflects upon why such homes become demolished. Something is wrong there. It has lost some element of what makes it love and what makes it home.

The idea that love can be made into a home--or rather that we ought to make a home of it--would naturally entail that luxury of comfort with entrusting to another one's vulnerability of their insecurities. Allowing another a passport to travel such foreign landscapes is one of the most rewarding experiences of the beauty and the darkness of love.

I will agree that love means to entrust to another the ability to be completely vulnerable with them, and while trust is decidedly an instrumental factor in love's maintenance, it cannot be the sole pillar of support. Refer to my poem Sexes where I detail the varying aspects of love, including trust, among other variables. Or, take the easier route: do a search on Robert Sternberg and his tiangular theory of love.

There are many types of love, but a consummate love can find a home in a mansion, apartment, shack, or cardboard box; whatever physical or aesthetic role it deems to associate with happiness.

[jabble524]

You are absolutely correct- love is in the eye of the beholder. You made some interesting points which I had not thought of/considered.