Can't Help But Fly

I've been wanting to deconstruct this song since I first heard it, and marvelled at it, almost four years ago. This is the purest expression of polyamory I have yet heard. This song is by "Naima Infinity", and all interpretations are mine.

magnetic attraction 
mutual satisfaction 
first sight, love at eye contact
i love it that our passion is such a high contrast
to the possessiveness that limited our loveships in the past

Love at first sight. Whether you've experienced it or not, you likely know someone who has.
I haven't, oddly enough. Not quite. What I have felt, four times now in a huge way, is an instant connection, a sense of the cosmos slapping me in the face and saying "LOOK HERE, THIS PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU IS IMPORTANT."
And in each case, they were. In each case, that feeling rapidly developed into love as I understood it at that time. Two of those people I have since had to, in the interests of love, walk away from. The other two are at the very center of my life now.
I still love the two that are gone, just as I will always love the two who are here, among many others.
Possessiveness is not love. Possessiveness is a corruption of love. You can be possessive of objects (although that's not particularly enlightened), but of people? Never.


 chorus 1: i'm a bird who sings in the springtime 
 she's a girl who smiles like the sunrise
 though i love the days when she's all mine 
 i don't try to bottle her sunshine

 loving, crushing-she sees me staring
 baby maybe loving is sharing 
 feel the wind of love on the sky
 i'm a bird that can't help but fly 

I wrote a poem in grade thirteen for the second of those bolts of lightning. My love for her was unrequited, at least in the fashion I wanted it. My poem was bittersweet, written knowing perfectly well what her feelings for me were and weren't. But I concluded it "I must, however, sing."
That foreshadows "I can't help but fly." When I feel love, I can't help but express it.
I'm exceedingly cautious how I do that, because my intentions are VERY easily misconstrued. For the record, once again: I will give love in whatever measure it's accepted, and take love in whatever form it's offered--subject to the dictates of other extant relationships. I mean no threat to those, although I understand why I can be perceived to.

i can't fit inside monogamy's philosophies
of one and only constantly  
stopping me from boundlessly
expressing what is possibly
the greatest force in all of me
my heart cannot be property
ownership is opposite
of all that love has taught to me
the infinite capacity
of each of us to happily 
surrender to the majesty
of learning love's true mastery
each one of us a tapestry
anatomy like galaxies 
it’s fallacy i’d need someone
complete the other half of me
reality is many souls reflect my whole totality  
complexity, vitality
my sensual mentality 

Wow, so much here. This is where the concept of monogamy is flipped on its head. Many equate monogamy with security; many others have had their illusion of security spoiled, and/or perhaps spoiled that illusion themselves.
Monogamy is not a guarantor of security. Nor, for that matter, is polyamory. Security, like so much else, comes from within.

The thing is, though, many do tend to wander through life in search of their "other half" to "complete" them. This is done up as a romantic trope and it's TREMENDOUSLY damaging. You are a complete person in and of yourself. So is/are your partner(s). To even suggest otherwise, to think someone else is needed to complete you, is to deny that other person the autonomy to grow and change themselves.

"Many souls reflect my whole totality". This is very much true for me. Interestingly, those souls tend to get along with each other rather well.

rather than analogies
of draining like a battery 
the more and more i practice love 
the more my love grows naturally 
i know a few interpreters
think jealousy is flattery 
I avidly promote we try 
to rise up from the agony
try out a brand new strategy
flip envy into ecstasy 
amplified through alchemy

I can sense people wanting to ask me how it is I have room in my heart for so many. It's no big secret, really; nor is it particularly difficult if you put your mind to it. It goes like this:

Love.  And then love again. Don't try and tell yourself that a second love must cancel the first. Just...love both. Cherish both. For all that they are. And if a third comes along, love him or her too. Come at every relationship from a position of love, and inevitably you will draw love to you. Just as inevitably people will settle in concentric rings around your heart.

"Jealousy is flattery"...really? Jealousy is pain at another's happiness. How is that in any way flattering? Jealousy is wanting, not to share, but to take someone from another. How is that in any way flattering?

(chorus)


if a girl ask you to dance-
then dance with the girl
if it feels right,
then you should hold hands with the girl
cuz i believe that god is love and love she keeps telling me
to step back, relax and deconstruct your jealousy
cuz jealousy is fear-some days i'm scared of losing you
but you and i are free to leave if we choose to
i'm taking down the bricks of this invisible wall
and when the wind of love blows, now we both can feel it all

I want to expound particularly on the "you and I are free to leave if we choose to". This statement, which ought to be self-evident -- love is not a prison -- is often misconstrued to mean that the relationship can't possibly be serious/committed. This boggles my mind. Just because someone is free to leave does not mean they will.
I see relationships as continuing acts of mutual choice. Such choice is not always conscious, but it's there. Mono or poly, you CHOOSE to remain with your partner, just as you CHOOSE to leave him.
And to repeat a poly truism: "the people in the relationship are more important than the relationship". That means, in a nutshell, that if a relationship no longer serves both parties, it should transition into something else. No drama, no acrimony required.

The thing about poly--the thing I love most, really, aside from abundant love itself -- is that "losing' is not necessary. Why would it be? We are free to explore other connections; we need not lose one to take up another.


cuz you love to hear me sing, even if you didn't write the note 
i love to hear you laugh, even if i didn't tell the joke 
you know i love to cuddle, love to pull your body close
and i love it when you're happy even if i have to let you go
cuz if you need your space then baby you can let me know
i'll love you from afar you my star in a telescope 
i'm not a god, i'm not a fool but I would be both
to think that love was something i could control

The first two lines up there are polyamory in a nutshell. I have repeated them many times and will continue to. This is compersion: joy unadulterated by self-interest. Although, for what it's worth, abundance breeds further abundance, in my experience: allowing your partner the freedom to explore connections with others has, for me, strengthened the connection I have with my partner.

Again, second half, that strange (to mono eyes) seeming dismissal of the relationship. It isn't that it all. It's a full validation of the person: she is free to move on if it serves her. Who are you to hold her back? Who is she to hold you back? Which does not mean that you push each other away. You hold, but not too tight.

Yes, poly can be frightening. New love in particular can overwhelm both individuals and existing partnerships, and "being displaced (note: DIS-, not RE-) is a thing that happens as each relationship seeks and finds its own level. This can happen despite any silly rules you put in place to suppress it: in fact, the more rules you have, the less likely your polyamory will succeed. Rules go where trust is supposed to be.
And yes, this is where the 'threat' of polyamory is, in fact, real. The only way to counter this at all is to ensure respect for ALL parties in the relationship at ALL times. It won't necessarily negate the possibility of displacement, but it will at least make sure that if it does happen, it will happen relatively peacefully.

(chorus)

i love how your empathy finds joy inside my intimacy
with someone else that's into me. Love is limitless, infinity.
i love it how my loyalty dissolves your insecurity 
our love it blooms concurrently you know that's my priority
i'm soaring through an odyssey deep in the realms of honesty
with conscious choreography consensual autonomy
equality, responsibly i feel our trust it waters me 
a love like this is selflessly fulfilling like a prophecy 

"I love how my loyalty dissolves your insecurity"
Loyalty, to monogamists, is sexual and emotional fidelity. There are polyamorists who have this same meaning--those polyfidelitous relationships are just like monogamy, except there's more people involved. To other polyamorists, "loyalty" means honesty, respect and the honouring of commitments wherever possible. Being there to share joy and pain and help each other grow.  Or, as was expressed to me--

I love you as you are, and as you will always be. May we hold hands together and face the future as one, and rejoice in the love we have and share with others. 

The first underlined bit does not exclude the second, nor the second the first. I read sentences like that and my heart leaps with joy: THAT'S IT!

cuz there's no better way to love me than thru honesty and trusting
it's not indiscriminate fucking, it's indiscriminate loving 
it's rising up to realize that love's your greatest gift to me
it's lifting me above the narrow space of normativity
now we are one and i am free and you can take the sky with me
cuz love is phoenix flying rise up above to feel the breeze
some days will be a struggle and some will fly by with ease
but i would love it if you trust to claim this journey with me

I still struggle with this stanza, the second line of it in particular. Intellectually I get it: relationships can be short-lived and intensely loving. I'm not fully sure I am capable of experiencing 'indiscriminate loving', and I am terrified of my partner in those circumstances getting the feeling that I am a pole and she is a hole. Indiscriminate is not for me I'm sure some feel otherwise, but I choose my loves with great care, and for me, at least, great care implies a long-term connection.

(chorus)

look right at me baby let’s make eye contact
you trust in me, i trust in you there’s no doubt bout that
our hearts have grown vast I know our love’s gon' last
'cause soul to soul we touching through this eye contact

Trust. And soul connection. That's polyamory. That's how I live and love.