I learned the tomb of silence early

How to swallow myself 

into silent 

morsels 

of a human

To not awake 

the sleeping giant

That love was 

loud and scary

To protect 

myself from 

it,

was to be invisible

To live in fear 

Yet 

to always 

expect love,

to show up on time

To know 

I could always depend on love

to defend me from harm 

while being 

simultaneously harmful

I knew love was: 

to mature faster 

in the depths 

of seeing 

fallen gods as prey 

 

Love held my hand across the street and showed up to my plays

Amor couldn’t always 

show up but picked me up 

if I forgot my homework 

Amor drank too many times 

and swallowed herself 

into an abyss that 

numbed the pain 

Love angrily wished me 

to be different 

Free of titles, 

free of belonging to a man, 

free of belonging to society 

Love taught me that it, too, 

ends even when 

the feelings haven’t 

That someone else 

can pretend to fill 

That space and manipulate it 

into a recurring nightmare 

Love is 

reciprocated in dysfunction 

unlike fairytales 

It takes sickness and loss of health

 to remember broken vows

I was taught to see myself as beautiful; capable of anything 

yet somehow I missed

internally flowing of my own love 

I met love 

with teary intimidation 

Until those droplets 

no longer 

solved anything

Living in dried up pupils

Following the path 

most traveled 

looking externally

 into emptier vessels

And seeing 

myself