A kind of love

Love is a hurting kind

            of being, too much

            for young bodies, still dewdrop fresh,

            eyes peeled and ragged.

            All loves ache - the ready

            betrayed trust between

            friends, the softly stinging cases

            of unrequited lust. Even the

            boyfriend, arms safe around you, burns

            when you think of his love crumbling

            to ash

                        while yours stays strong.

(or then, visa versa, the tenderness

in his eyes when you leave him

can haunt your daydreams, or the way

he cried on the phone, asking why,

saying he would give anything to die.)

            Love poem? This is the antithesis,

            the enemy.

I remember a time when love

            was a mother to a daughter.

            Incest was unimaginable. I curled into

            her at night, comma shaped,

            beckoning dreams when none

            came

            until the nightmare passed, and

            the creaking wood rocked me

            to sleep, a lullaby of breath.

I remember a time when love was

            a lie, unimaginable, a false negative of

            the soul, but I burned that away,

            smoke curling into the air - the

            true Valentine spirit.

And conversely, I remember a time

            being well in love, the radiance

            spinning from me, healthiness glowing

            in my cheeks and icy hands.

            Hand-holding? Overrated. Instead

            we talk for hours and kiss in

            the back of theatres. While others

sleep, we stare at the stars, pick

            out constellations, imagine a greater

            beauty

            than each other's faces, grinning

            in the dark.

How I miss those days, when all was

simple, and sex was a song on the

radio, background, indescribable.

            Love poem? This is the antithesis,

            the enemy.

I have a secret. Shh, don't tell.

            I have found a new love, the deep

            valleys and crevices in my heart

            being filled readily with tears

Because what else is there to know? I have

            found now a love that I cannot fulfill.

(some quiet mornings drowned in sleep

I accept the realities of this, but also

the joys, that this love is unreal,

but also real, too true, too perfect

to do anything but tuck under your

tongue, forever, for later.)

But yesterday, eyes shut in silence, lips feeling

            the truths of our world, our physicality, the bodies

            we share

            I found a kind of love - a love in imperfection,

            a love borne of trying, a love borne

            of my body on yours, the closeness, the wanting

            for closeness. I found it deep in you, normal teenage

            boy, no babies or marriage, just a high school lover

            two grades older and no wiser. We are young,

            we are young together. Shh, love, when I brush you here

            tonight, eyes shut again, remembering,

            when I rise up next to you and you dance like a palm

            in a mild breeze, shh, love, when I hold you tight

            remember, how I may never let go -

Love poem?

            This is the antithesis, the enemy.

Love poem?

            This is the truth, this is reality.