Violence and Love

Never have I thought how I wanted to be loved.
I have tested my language
Only to find my excuse when people call me “slut”
Because, actually, I just prefer physical touch.
And now it is too late to ask
“How do I want to be loved?”

I am an old dog in this new love
With no complaints about the way I am pet
With the same hand that feeds me.
In a way, it is insanitary
That my heart bleeds on the same floor I lap my love up from.

You were the garden I was never allowed
To play in
Because we were all too afraid I would
Eat the flowers that bloomed there.
We had a right to that fear.

Never mind the aftermath of my storm
As long as my body was rubbed against
Every single one of your gently petals.
As long as you gave your all into something
You could not survive through.

Maybe that is how I should be loved.
With the violence of a thunderstorm
Shaking your tree from its roots
Just to strangle you into submission.
I want to be the conqueror
The devastation
That forces you to rebuild on my havoc.
I want you to remember me
As the idea that spat your soil into the neighbor’s yard
Just because I could.

I want to rattle your bones
In the cellar of your heart
Just to make sure you can feel me.
Feel me in the rage you have felt
The first time you have seen red.
In that moment you wanted my throat
But bit my lip instead.

I want love the way
The way the devil wants anger and mistakes.
I want love the way
A new heart breaks with disaster and apocalypse
That is me.

This poem is about: 
Me

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