I will love you
No matter how many times
The only response I get
to my heartfelt words
is your silence.

No matter how many times
you roll over
when I ask you to hold me.

No matter how often I present you with little gifts
because they made me think of you
and you leave them
to collect dust on a shelf.

I will love you
No matter how many times
you choose your friends over me.
 
No matter how many late nights pile up.

No matter how many times
I will have to cry myself to sleep
alone

yes,
I will love you.

When I hear the office women,
dressed up so pretty in their nice clothes
say that they are having a bad day -
I scowl.

Have you been crying quietly
at your desk
all day
too?

Do you mourn for the family that abandoned you?

Do you long for a safe space, a place to go to, to call home?

Has your lover forgotten how to love you?

Have you lost your peace -
Have you ever known peace -

Or, like me
are you conveniently
forgettable
expendable
and very much,
mostly unwanted?

You don't love me.
I feel it when you roll over at night,
too uncomfortable to hold me in your sleep.

I feel it in the cold, idle status of "read" messages -
seen for hours, but never answered.

I feel it in your chosen decision to say
any other combination of words
when I tell you that I love you.

I feel it in your decided silence.

I feel it in your chosen absence.

Maybe you did love me once,
but not anymore.

I stand naked in front of the mirror
and burn myself at the stake
for every imperfection,
every little thing that I hate.
If I was a better witch,
you would only see pretty.

Not this tangled mess of hair,
matted from sleepless nights.
Nor the scars on my arms,
from generations of life-gone-wrong.
Not my imperfect skin, wrinkled and flawed
from years of stress and worry -
nor the extra pounds I seem to so effortlessly gain, and wear with such shame.

Shame, the same like the tears that run down my cheeks.
All these things I hate.
These things - this body
that does not fit me
that does not satisfy.

I would sell every piece of me
just to bewitch you.

the phantom vibrations
in the back pocket of my jeans
serve to remind me
that I am not nearly as important
as other people,
other things.

if I had a penny
for every time you crossed my mind,
god,
i'd be so ******* rich.