By Talicha

Loving you is uncomfortable,

like realizing there’s no toilet paper
after you’ve already used the bathroom.

It is inconvenient
like a bad tattoo in a time
before tattoos could be removed.

Loving you is a hailstorm
of regrets with no shelter to
await it’s passing.

It is a car crash
with no survivors,
a metaphor with no meaning.

Loving you is random
like rain only falling on one half
of the street,

I watch baffled,
wondering if it’ll ever make it
to the other side.

It is offbeat, when I think
I have its code deciphered the rhythm of loving you
switches tempo.

It is painful loving you, like lemon juice
licking paper cuts or sea salt swimming
along the channels of future scars.

Loving you is a time loop where every day is a nightmare,
I wake up still missing you, still loving you, still missing you,
still, loving you is a life sentence,

it is black bars and keyless locks,
it is gavel bangs for heartbeats
attempting to call for order

I bet I’ve bled more pens dry writing
about what loving you has done to me
than you’ve shed tears over us.

Tell me, did loving me hurt you this bad?
Were my eyes trigger happy
to your soul?

Did the memory of my love
leave death echoes
haunting your heart?

Did loving me leave you
feeling like you were breathing
with punctured lungs?

Loving me must have brought
out the liar in you, because I remember once
when you told me I was beautiful,

I replied that I was broken
and you said,
What’s the difference?

Said the beauty was in between the pieces
of me glued back together.
I believed you

because loving you makes me foolish, hopeful, human.
I remember the first time
I ever laid eyes on your flaws.

Do you remember how I never
held them against you?
I fell harder for you instead.

Loving you is a full-time job
making minimum wage,
even on days that I come in and do overtime

I still never get what I deserve.
It is dissatisfying to love you,
do you know that?

Is that why you pushed,
why you fought like hell to free your heart
from my grasp?

Were you aware that loving you
was this excruciating?
If so love, why didn’t you sound

the sirens sooner?
Before my lily-white take on matters
of the heart became distorted

so that I couldn’t tell the difference
between loving you and hurting myself.
I want to go to the moment

our eyes first locked and look away.
I’m lying.
I want to go back to the moment

our eyes first locked and do everything
the same because loving you,
as much as it makes me a martyr,

is something I cannot undo.
We wore each other’s imperfections perfectly
but even on our worst days

we were beautiful,
some could argue broken,
but I say, what’s the difference?