Love…is exhausting

It’s like an alien

Hijacking your body

It slithers up your spine

Going seemingly unnoticed

Until it locks in its poisonous tentacles

shutting down your good sense

And turning you into

Cupid’s mindless play thing

Walking defenselessly into pretty words

And equally brain washed promises

Not knowing if anything is real

Until you’re in so deep

That if it is fake

Then ripping off the Band-Aid

Will feel like ripping off

A thick layer of flesh

leaving you with a deep scar

And a constant internal lecture

About how things should

Or shouldn’t have happened

Trying to rationalize your choices,

But just finally coming to the conclusion

That either you’re stupid

Or they’re stupid,

But really you’re both kind of stupid

~

On rare occasions love is real

You’re blessed when you awake

From your trance to find

That love still floating there

In the middle of your chest

Not your heart

But that unseen no man’s land

That could perhaps be your soul

Or your sternum

Or maybe it’s cancer

An incurable too late

Kind of cancer

That’s a part of you now

And you can be sure

That you’ll die with it

But it’s okay because

It’s love and it’s real

This person beside you

Reached into the very core

Of your body

And ripped the alien

From its freaky brain washing quest

And told cupid to go fly into the sun

Because that’s not real love

Pretty words and silly promises

Real love is dealing with things

It’s not trying to make the scars go away

Or cushion the blow of every

Heart breaking memory

It’s not some stupid contract

A deed to my endless devotion

A quick handshake

Love cannot be

Brought down to the definition of “like”

Love is precious

Love is patient

Love is kind and understanding

Love is having the capacity and willingness

To carry each other’s baggage

And walk the journey together

One heavy step at a time

And maybe drop a few stones along the way

But never expecting more than all the other can give

Just being together

Breathing the same air

Crying a little

Laughing a lot

Taking life in slowly

And falling down

Way, way down

Into each other

Into a wonderland for two

And never climbing out again

Because if you’re really in love

Then you’ll have nothing

Better worth going back to