On coming undone and what it means

People often ask me what it means to come undone. To me, coming undone is an unravelling of sorts. At its simplest definition "coming undone" means to be pulled apart or loosened, like at a seam. When we fall in love, the walls and barriers that many of us have built around our hearts begin to slowly disappear. We begin showing (sometimes without even realizing it) the innermost parts of ourself to this other person, the parts that we believe are too ugly, or too complicated, or too shameful.

When a person comes undone, to some extent, they have lost their composure or self-control. It can be compared to going mad or not being able to hold yourself together. But isn't that what love is anyway? Isn't it a kind of madness that eventually we all experience?

Love is the greatest drug and once we experience it we'd do it anything to get that feeling over and over again. When we're in love we tend to do and say things that are out of character for us and little by little we begin to unravel. We begin shedding all of the layers that for so long protected us and in the end all we are left with is the beauty of our completely exposed souls, scars and all.

When I decided that I wanted to write a collection of love poems that was the exact message that I wanted to convey. I wanted to show how beautiful love can really be even when it's between two very flawed and complicated people. Rarely do we ever analyze love, but love and the act of loving forces us to look past the exterior. Love forces us to strip down and look not only at our partners, but also at ourselves. And when we really look at ourselves, we give others permission to look at us too.

-NAR-

Coming Undone will be available January 31, 2015. Pre-order your limited signed copy today.

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