I do not know how to be in love with you.

I do not know how to be in love.

I’ve been told to hide my feelings in my bones,

so only when I become a skeleton will they be close
to being seen.

See, even death won’t be enough light to find them,
not until every part of me is broken and ground
down, until the marrow is exposed along with
everything I’ve ever felt, every part of my existence
crushed to nothing.

I am not dead inside, I am simply empty.

Those who visited my heart before you

told me that this was not normal.

They consistently reminded me that they could not
find reason to live in a home without colors,
without furniture,

doors that were never opened,

and a yard with dying grass that seemed to keep
snakes away and everyone else along with them.

This temple only knows me,

it only knows abandonment, a

nd it knows nothing special besides pain.

Words of love slip through my teeth,

yet you don’t hear it from my heart.

It is not pretense,

people with empty hearts speak wishes quite often.

I do not lie about love,

I am merely still practicing how to say it in a way
that helps my heart join the chant.

I am not happy with this temple.

I am still cutting down the trees planted by the
demons God drove out when I begged Him to park
Himself inside my heart,

making way for the sun to find me.

I am not a hypocrite,

I just don’t know how to love.

Never did I hurt her and not feel
twice the pain,

as if every low blow to her was an
uppercut to my rib.

Quite the contrary,

men who are truly on the road of
love cannot hit and run.

They either run,

then get hit,

or hit,

then walk

with heavy legs,

aching hearts,

and regret chasing after them.

“It’s never easy.”

When loving a man like him
becomes something you cannot
bring yourself to cherish,

you must let him go.

Let him go without tying an
invisible string of hope to his leg,
slowly reeling him back in

while you figure out if you are
ready to be loved by a man like him
or not.

Let his heart find freedom to learn
the name of a woman who will
cherish it without hesitation.

Unearth his roots before you pass
judgement on the fruits he bears.

Instead,

dig to find what kind of soil he was
planted in,

the way he was watered,

who became the sunlight to his eyes
etc.,

to learn what type of tree he is and
understand why he grows the
harvest you see.

You must care enough to reach
deep.

We don’t know anything about
anyone with whom we only walk on
shallow ground.

I am nothing like the pretentious
lovers who came before I found my
way to you.

Our voices do not sound the same,
our intentions don’t come from the
same place,

our burdens do not weigh the same.