Jérôme Licht

21 Mind-Blowing Short Poems That Capture The Essence Of True Love

Poetry is an universal language of love, passion and beyond, that never ceases to reinvent itself.  Like magic amulets, these short, moving poems harvest the power of real feels for the one you adore.
Ioana Cristina Casapu
July 20, 2016
“They say in this case
the first love
will be the last love
so what if
the boy that got away
thinks of you as
the girl that got away
and what if
fate pulls this trick
on you too?”
— Annelies, "Long Time", Excerpt from the series Morning Wild Boy Hair
Tagged: Poetry, Love, True Love Waits, Writers, Poets, Heartbreak, Distance
“Two rules for kissing:
1. Don’t kiss someone who’s in love with someone else.
1a. Especially if you love whomever you’re kissing.
2. Don’t let someone who loves you kiss you when you don’t share their feelings.
2a. Especially if you’re in love with someone else.”
— S.M., Things High School Has Taught Me
Tagged: Kissing, Love, True Love Waits, Poetry, poem, Writers, Poets, Internet Poetry
“Will it be alright,
if I love you
from eyes to lips
from skin to bones
from heart to soul? Will it be alright,
if I call you
my home?”
— Lukas W., Coffee thoughts #35
Tagged: Poetry, Love, Lovers, poem, Internet Poetry, Writers
“your name is
scrawled on restaurant napkins
and leather bus seats
in the inside of library books
and carved into trees
maybe one day you’ll see
and know I was there
maybe one day you’ll see
and fall back in love with me”
— Leigh, Poetry, Day 235
Tagged: Love, Lovers, Poetry, Internet Poetry
“There is a love I reminisce.
like a seed
I’ve never sown

of lips that I am yet to kiss,
and eyes
not met my own.

hands that wrap around my wrists.
and arms
that feel like home.

I wonder how it is I miss,
these things
I’ve never known.”
— Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure (Lang Leav)
Tagged: Lovers, Melancholia, Internet Poetry, Poetry, poem, romance
“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in
my heart)
I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)”
— E. E Cummings, 100 Selected Poems
Tagged: Love, Poetry, Romantic Poetry
“There are 6 states
pressed like stubborn flowers
between the last time I kissed you and today
but you still feel like a sound caught in my
throat.”
— Sierra De Mulder, During The Month It Took For You To Leave Me
Tagged: Poetry, Internet Poetry, Love, Lovers, romance, Melancholia
“In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.”
— Jeffrey MCDaniel, The Quiet World
Tagged: Love, Poetry, Lovers, Missing, Melancholia, Pain, Longing, Desire
“When you show up, I’ll say –
Hey, let’s give this a go.
You’re gentle and feel warm –
we can be silent
and we can crack jokes.
If this sounds good to you,
I’ll be your beggar queen –
my cheap metal bracelets
turn pink against my skin.
I loathe glass slippers,
but you can kiss
the extra bones on my feet.
Come, my love –
we will laugh
at red unicorns inside plastic hearts.
We will hold hands
through the vampire forests
of our minds.
We will cry.
We will try.”
— Anca Rotar, Poem To Call Love In
Tagged: Poetry, Internet Poetry, Magic, Lovers
“The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.”
— Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair
Tagged: Love, Poetry, Poets, Writers, romance
“I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of.”
— Charles Bukowski, An Almost Made Up Poem, from "Love Is A Mad Dog From Hell"
Tagged: Poetry, Lovers, Passion, Desire, True Love Waits
“To remember is to open

one door
after another

all along
the white corridor
to say Yes when asked,

Are you anything?
Did she love you?”
— Robin Ekiss, The Bones Of August
Tagged: Poetry, Poets, Writers, Love, Remembering, Melancholia
“In my defense, when he touched me the lights of my body came on.
In my defense, the windows were thrown open. In my defense, spring.”
— Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Not Doing Something Wrong Isn’t the Same as Doing Something Right
Tagged: poem, Poetry, Lovers, Passion, Awakening
“In the summer
I stretch out on the shore
And think of you
Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.”
— Nizar Qabbani, In The Summer
Tagged: Love, Poetry, poem, Poets, romance, Lust For Life
“Even if I now saw you
Only once,
I would long for you
Through worlds,
Worlds.”
— Izumi Shikibu, Haiku
Tagged: haiku, Poetry, Love, poem
“As Romeo is dying Juliet says
‘I am willing to die to remain by your side’
and love was never a static place of rest
but the last second of euphoria
while throwing yourself out from a 20 store window
to be able to say
‘I flew before I hit the ground’,
and it was glorious.

Don’t be sorry.
The fall was beautiful, dear.
The crash was beautiful.”
— Charlotte Erickson, The Fall
Tagged: Poetry, Love, Romeo and Juliet, romance
“Our kiss is a secret handshake, a password.
We love like spies, like bruised prize fighters,
like children building tree houses.

Our love is serious business.
One look from you and my spine
reincarnates as kite string.

When I hesitate to hold your hand,
it is because to know is to be responsible for knowing.”
— Mindy Nettifee, This is the Nonsense of Love
Tagged: Poetry, Lovers, Kissing, Holding Hands, Architecture Of Happiness
“you have had love, and that means
your sternum is a divining rod
for both passion and grief. because the tongue is the body’s
strongest muscle, make it say
joy. make it say I am a factory of splendid things. make it say
the octopus is the smartest animal
in the animal kingdom, and I am an octopus. I am an octopus.
I am happy. my survival
was not an accident, or purposeless.”
— Marty McConnell, Zoo
Tagged: Love, Passion, Poetry, Animal Kingdom, Lovers, poem, Poets
“Make love to me in Spanish.
Not with that other tongue.
I want you juntito a mi,
tender like the language
crooned to babies.
I want to be that
lullabied, mi bien
querido, that loved.”
— Sandra Cisneros, Dulzura, From "Loose Woman"
Tagged: Poetry, Poems, Poets, Love, Passion, Surrender
“I am sad that you are not strong,
and do not swim and sail and ski,
but you have a strong soul,
and I will believe in you
and make you invincible on this Earth.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath
Tagged: Poetry, Love, strength, Soul Poetry
“… I trust you, I mean I’ve considered
that you could betray me …”
— Carl Phillips, Blizzard
Tagged: Love, Poetry, Trust, poem, Writers, Poets, Betrayal