Love vs. Pride

**Following my recent pattern of storytelling in depth scenarios of relations dealing with men and women, I bring you my newest poem Love vs. Pride. Its a sort of tugging war that, I think everyone has had some type of experience in. It all comes down to which one would you be willing to sacrifice over the other. Love or Pride? Enjoy!**

"Am I ready to risk it all?
For love has got no ego.
Even while knowing this
Every time I am ready to give unto you
Pride holds me down like shackles.
Bolting me firmly to the ground.
I am a prisoner of this foolery
and yet I know it.
But I'm not willing to give up on my dignity
for love,
and have this lost battle weighing down on me heavily.
Having my self-righteousness
Sticking out its tongue and taunting me.
You, of course, will make matters worse,
as you say those words,
In a voice so sure of yourself,

"I told you so."

Do not tell me there is no winner or loser when it comes to love.
If I give in and declare you to be right
you would be holding me by the balls.
Castrating me.
Making me feel less of a man.
So I pout my lips and fold my arms.
Stubborn as an ass
I'm not budging.
I sneak a look to watch you pack your bags
As you threaten me that you’re leaving

Should I let you tear out my back bone,
and take the two feet that I stand on
Just to keep you here and content?
Will I be looking back, years from now,
with just myself and my regrets?
Replaying in my head
My shoulda, coulda, woulda’s
of all the things I never said,
Or the thing I never did to stop you?
That I didn't tell you that I love you,
That I want you
And you’re the one person that I want to marry.
What if we only get one chance at this big love?
Who will be at a lost
If we both walked away?
Will I begin to resent every woman here on after?
because there would be way too much contrasting and not enough comparison.

If this situation
So happens to
End in heartbreak,
And I needed someone
To fill the cold haunting emptiness
That you had left behind,
I wouldn’t want to get to know
Someone else
I already know you.

"Stop," I say so thunderous that
My voice echoed an underlying desperation
Through out the room.
I grab you by the arm
And prevent you from leaving.
I know if you left now
There is no way to rewind time like a VHS.
There would be no getting back
No second chance.
So I have to say it.
Right here.
Right now.
I have no other choice.
Ignoring my evil conscience
Hovering over my left shoulder.
I hesitate as the words slip out of my mouth
In such a low monotonous sound
that I didn't think I was audible.
"I love you,"
but she heard,
Because as the words quickly escaped the confines of my mouth,
Tears welled up in her eye.
This was all she needed to hear.
Indication that I really care
just a confirmation of what I truly feel.
An emotion I was denying as if it was a mistress.
And if I let her go I know I would have missed this...
I feel like a man who came clean, doing grown man things
and no longer an adolescent adult still stuck in my youth.
I can breathe!
I set myself free
peeling back the tough skin
And the hard edged persona
That just was not me.

I know now that you should set aside your ego for love.
Enough with the egocentric ideas
I flip the bird to egotism,
because I have been
straight ego-tripping.
When all is said and done
and the smoke thins out and the air clears,
wherever there is a raging battle of Love vs. Pride
there is always one that succeeds over the other.
Love reigns as the one and only undefeated Champion,
And If off of a whimsical thoughtless decision you do decide
to choose your own pride
over the one you love
In the words of Lauryn Hill, “Ya Just Lost One”