growing up, someone should have told you
that love doesn't have to hurt so much.
but everyone around you
loves in the form of violence.
they lead you to believe
that yelling is the sound of romance
and that affection comes in the form
of mouth-shaped bruises on your neck.
i'll tell you now,
love doesn't have to hurt so much.
love doesn't have to resemble war.
i see you, running through battlefield after battlefield,
bumming cigarettes
and living out of backpacks,
jumping from bed to bed,
leaving men behind with nothing but inside-out pantpockets
and pillows that still carry your scent.
but you're not built for all these wars
because deep down, i know you're a lover.
you paint walls of abandoned apartments with lipstick,
eager to make them feel like homes,
and you give names to the babies
you never carried to full-term.
you share beds with different soldiers,
but you take time to kiss their eyelashes
and the parts of their faces that never get touched.
someone should have told you
that you deserve those kisses too,
that you deserve a love that doesn't take the form of
men punching you in the face.
but i know it's not that simple,
though i really wish it was.
but there's no harm in saying it again:
love doesn't have to hurt so much.
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