A LOVE SONG FOR MY SELF, ON SUNDAY
After ‘A Sunday Kind of Love’ by Etta James
I’m tired of all these Saturday nights –
Photographs for unknown eye
Taking coke off cracked phone screens, til
Tireless shoes are red with blood, then
Unwashed fingers press inside,
Half-eaten in the taxi home –
I want a Sunday kind of love.
To love you like I love the trees
In every weather, every mood
To watch you change and grow and yet
Be you, and always you –
I want a song!
Not loud and hollow thunder,
From one thing to the next,
To make a show of feeling,
Where feelings won’t be felt –
I’m too soft for endless storms,
And all their false horizons.
The storm cloud hid a fearful truth
You can’t escape when you are seen –
You’re held in place by who you are
Imperfect and unclean.
So, let me hold you in my arms
With peace and patience, year on year –
Learn knots and gnarls
Of trunk and branch –
I want it all. I want the mess.
We’ll make a Sunday, every day,
To worship you, just as you are,
Like open sky and ocean’s edge,
Connected to it all.
Now I am found inside my Self
The peaceful dirt, my only Soul.
She breathes in me
And holds my Heart
To keep it safe
As I love on.
Alexandra Sive, 27, London - UK ✯ IG: @alexandrasive
“Alexandra Sive is a writer, painter, and maker from London. She read English Literature at the University of Cambridge, and then Art History at the Courtauld Institute. She's worked for Vogue and HarperCollins, as an art room teaching assistant at a primary school, and a 20th-century art specialist at the biggest gallery group in the UK. She loves fresh mint tea, long walks on the heath, and Bignolet, her little black cat.”