Owned

The concept of ownership is incredibly strange when applied to humans, isn't it? If we ask the question: "Is it possible for someone to OWN me?" - we rebel against that. How can someone own me, it sounds tyrannical! But the real question is not one of deed or claim, but one of gift. The question is whether it possible to give yourself to another.

It is. How otherwise? If you cannot give yourself, who owns you and who is preventing the gift? If you cannot give yourself then you are not your own.

But of course, the gift is sentient, and that adds complexity. We can only say ownership of a sentient being if we mean ownership with permission and ownership by permission. Such gift and such ownership is not slavery. It is a gift full willing - and yes, it is subject to revocation.

The person who has given themselves to you can take it back. Fully and completely.

And some might say, well hell, that cheapens it then. "What's the point? It's meaningless to say it was given, if it can be taken back."

What a fool. A gift in love, a gift of self is not cheapened because it can be taken back. It doesn't mean less, it means more, infinitely more each day, because it is not taken back. Because it is a gift of self given freely, not once - but with every breath. That's not as if to say "oh god my every breath it's like I'm breathing the pure LOVE OF YOU, BABY!" Naw. Even I'm not that bad. Chemistry and magnetism whether emotional or sensual or spiritual or just plain sexual - it's all cyclical. In a life-long love it crests, and waxes, and wanes, and returns again. And some days, yup, the fizz is at LOW EBB. And other days you may even feel just "I'm sick of you!"

Yet the gift was given, and you give it again. Even on those days where you're sick and bored, you could take it back, but you end up not. Instead you sit up, and you think of all the reasons you gave it, and you remember who your lover is and who you are, and you know what power exists between you when you are together and calm and one, and yourselves. When life's not giving you static and you aren't, either. And remembering, you put memory into action, and the gift is still there. Each of you belongs to the other. Each of you has all the other has, and so you've got yourself back as well! The gift remains given, and you give it again.

Every day, and with every breath, the gift remains given until you take it back. This means so much more than the slavery, the locked property people accuse you of, when you say you have given your self and taken another's in gift. It means so much more, because every day is a day you could choose to give up, if you wanted to. Every day is a day you could take back the gift you gave. If you couldn't believe in it ever again, anymore, your love would escape and your self would again be yours.

Love is a gift and love remains a gift. Every day you stay you make of your self a gift given it freely.