What is love when it wears
the shoes of hate
sweater of judgment
accessories of gossip
pants of vengeance
and the coat of conditions?
Real love is naked

I watched you die
Wasn't there next to you
Nowhere in your site
Just on my cell phone
Watching you die
While the next meme follows in the timeline
I saw your family cry
I've never met them
Don't even know anyone who knows them
Saw them on a YouTube
While going through recommended videos
I tuned in to your hashtag
Followed for a few minutes
Liked a few tweets
But didn't retweet
Hit the arrow on the top left
And went back to my timeline
After I watched you take your last breath
You lay lifeless
Not fortunate enough to die in the energy of love
Immortalized in the death of many
But many isn't enough for change
Ever a hashtag
Sustained by newsreels and half­hearted court cases, likes and retweets
Until I watch the next you die in my timeline
Worse yet, I'll read of their demise in a headline
Just last week a man lost his testicles, teeth, and life after a routine stop on the highway, the story
didn't trend or make it into my timeline

The future won't find my love letters
Just texts trapped in old phones
Emails stuck on old hard drives
Maybe a password protected server

My grandchildren won't find our video chats
Even if they were recorded
All I have for them is passwords
Saving my love in clouds

The future won't know the details of how much I loved you

Sometimes I feel like I should slap the **** out of the next man who says he loves me.
Not during *** either
A slap for pain, not pain and pleasure

Hindsight is showing me a hallway of all the men who said they loved me
Under each frame is a heart
Under each heart is a list of the fuckery they brought to the table
The fuckery I accepted
The fuckery I said was okay because I loved them too

I believe in loving unconditionally
I'm starting to feel like that means hurting freely
It's like opening my rib cage, exposing my heart and letting out all this love in the middle of a war zone

Gotta be real
I'm not a ******* Care Bear
My love stare has been known to tame the vilest of monsters
But over time, the release of my love changes nothing when they have no respect
When they are mad
When they disregard my feelings
When its over

To the next man who says, "I Love You, Candace."
I say to thee, "*******!"
Watch out for the hook

Brightened and broken at the time
Hitting me like lightening
The flash exposing the shadows in my creases
Lighting
Open my cage to see a beating exploding star
SuperNova

Hope is a retrograde
Piecing it all back together
Sewing with the strands of time
Rebuilding my heart to its fighting weight
Pat said "love is a battle field"
I know I will go to war again

Women of a Certain Age
Can't tell the difference between love and pain
Just want to feel to know they're sane
Numb to the concept of shame
Their hearts grew weak from false loves
Skipping and breaking
Sitting alone in a corner shaking
Until they had no ***** left