I Understand True Love Doesn’t Sleep

A Prose Poem

The day of love approaches — savored lips flaunt in the midnight air — an enticing invitation for feelings swaddled in blankets too tight for release.

I have my ways, I know. You tell me this often, and I do hear you. I do. But I find my ways to be risky if I veer too far away from them — they’ll find me. They’ll seek me out.

And once I’ve been repurposed and re-homed, they will betray me. You have been my ruin for different shades of many moons — I want out.

I understand true love doesn’t sleep, but this feels like death — pre-meditated. I don’t remember signing up for this. *“You were light, but you were never my sun.”

I gave you a place at the table of my world — you sopped at every morsel, buried your woes at my feet. I welcomed the torment. I opened my door to the revolution and it struck me without warning.

I am burned by the light of a star.

Here . . . there are scars that refuse to heal. Here . . . there is pain that continues a cycle. Here . . . there is a heavy cross to bear.

I am broken from carrying it.

I wait for you — afraid that if I move forward in time with someone who walks on high heels and flashes deep dimples in my direction, I will fall and won’t be able to stand and steady myself in an upright position. She makes me weak.

And while the lovers of this realm ululate at the sight of a full moon on a day more special than your favorite sin, I will bite my tongue, don my adulting garb, and thank God for the new pair of balls I’ve grown.

I don’t believe in true love. I did believe in you.

I don’t anymore.

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*Taken from the indomitable Sarah Doughty.

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Originally published in soliloque via Medium.