We are story making, meaning-making animals. Our stories define our lives. And so I am asked, what is your story about love and romance?

There are those who will tell you, "You are a machine. Your whole life has been empty and meaningless and won't get any better." My story is that love proves I am not a machine. Machines do not love. My life has not been empty, mostly because of the love I have given and received. And love makes my life better, offering me a connection with others, a way of reaching outside of myself in positive, nurturing, sensual, authentic ways of being in touch not only with others but with the divine.

I believe that, alone, I am a whole and complete person, but it is through the sharing of time, space, energy, emotions, physicality, sexuality, spirituality, pain, silence, boredom, humor -- the entire range of what it means to be human -- I add another dimension to myself. I love being in love because when I see myself in my lover (or my child, or my brother, sister, father, mother, the stranger in the street) I am part of the world and a being transformed. Romance is the playful expression of that love. It is thoughtful, nurturing, and creative, it is fun, it is an endorphin rush but more than chemistry, it serves to keep love alive as a thriving, exciting, living thing. It is the demonstration and dance of love. It doesn't have to die and may it never die, regardless of how old the lovers are or how long they have been together.

I do not give myself away to love easily I have hidden my love in fear for years, but in loving, falling in love, becoming love, being love, I chose to expose myself, to chance my fears, to say, "Yes, I am ready to face my fears and run the risk of pain again." Even at the risk of losing love. Because in my heart I know that I never really lose love. I never lost my wife’s love, or my daughter’s love or my father's love, even though their bodies have died. I will never lose my mother's love -- even if today was excommunicated, or your -- even if you left me tomorrow, or any lover’s love... because each one forms a collective identity of love that has given me something of themselves. I've not merely packed those gifts away in stories or in my past, but in my heart and the cells of my body. I go through the short list of the lovers in my life and only a few that I have had physical and emotional relationships with, although I have only been "in love" with maybe half of them. There have been perhaps the same number that I've loved from afar and never approached. But whether we have parted in anger, affection or death, or never joined together at all, each have gifted me and I have gifted them in some way; an exchange of human spirit and energy.

I wish to be "unreasonable" in my love. This is probably one of the things that I (in my story) I love most about love. It is totally unreasonable. Logic and reason argue against falling in love. There is no really good reason for falling, being or staying in love given how messy, painful and work intensive love can be. Of course, there are all those stories we create about how, who, and why to love that must be satisfied, but are those "good reasons"?

How do I know I'm in love?

This is the most unreasonable part of it all for me: I know I'm in love because I know I'm love. All else is commentary: I am being in love when I am inspired, I am expansive, I am ageless, I am beautiful, I am generous, I am happy -- and I see myself and my love reflected in my lover. My poems are all elaborations on the paradoxical and totally unreasonable statement that I know I'm in love because I know I'm in love. Poetry is the best language for love because it steps beyond reason and rules.

And what does it look like to be loved?

It is a beautiful empty space. I have never felt loved by anyone the way that I feel loved by you, and you, and you… As many mirrors as a fun house. I have met all my lovers with my mother's open arms, my father's work ethic and my own gentleness -- I will cook, clean, comfort and create for my lovers. Yes, it is giving. And in giving I receive and I am rich beyond dreams -- look at the gifts my lovers have given me: The gift of becoming more fully me. It is a mutually respectful exchange that expands the lives of each beloved.

Yes, all of this is a story – these are the meanings I make up for love. And I can pretend it is selfless and know that it is selfish: it can be a sanctuary in a cold, hateful and violent world; it proves to me that I am lovable; I seek to replace loves lost; I try to find my way back to a loving God -- and yet I know that I am reaching beyond myself and touching another human being in the holiest way I know how.

My story can be summarized as this: Love connects me with my true humanity, community and divinity; it makes me more fully human, it is the best of myself that I have to offer, it comforts me and challenges me. Love gives me meaning and my poetry speaks for itself.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the quote attributed to Emma Goldman, "If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution." Love and poetry are essential to life and transformation. If I can’t love I can’t be in this life.

And I know that none of this is true. My story is an illusion created in a world of illusion. A Buddhist monk once said that yes, life is all illusion, and the most painful illusion of all is the death of a child. I chose to believe that the most beautiful illusion of all is love.

In an empty, meaningless universe, I choose to fill it with love and lovers.