There's a dusty book on an old chestnut bookshelf,
'Love' scrawled across the spine in golden letters.

Everyone has read it's secrets and taken them to heart.
Everyone has tasted it's nectar and gotten drunk on its words.

Everyone has prayed to its truths.
Everyone has promised to abide.

Verse I: She will love him.
Verse II: He will love her.

She-him, he-her.
These pronouns are tattooed in my eye lids.

These pronouns course through my veins.
These pronouns are stuck in my throat.

I'm choking on a normality I've been force fed,
my insides burning with society's expectations.

As I prayed every night for the man of my dreams.
As I confessed ever boy I had ever kissed.

As I looked at him and felt nothing.
As I looked at her and felt everything.

My fingers skimmed the pages of society's bible,
the pages slicing apart my fingers and leaving blood in the margins.

When my friends placed the rosary around their hands,
and I placed my hands in hers.

When I looked into the words being taken so blindly,
and my body created antibodies for every lie I had contracted.

And I stared into the verses, washing them away with angry tears.
And I threw the book into the fire, watching as the flames made their final edits.

And I looked into her eyes, and I tasted her lips.
And I let everything about her become everything I know.

I ignored the teachings I had once treasured and wrote a book for myself.
I learned to be unfaithful, and put my faith in her.