It’s hard to be in a new place.
It’s hard to be somewhere where no one knows you well enough yet
to love you unconditionally.

And so you find yourself picking up love wherever you can find it
In whatever form it comes in.
You find yourself peeling love off the streets
and scratching around the inside of garbage cans for it.
You look for it at the bottom of a bottle
or in the recesses of a fridge.
You look for love in new clothes
and in long runs and your favorite songs
and in between a skinny boy’s legs
and in the compliments
of an old man at a bar.
You look for love in the texts of old friends
And in the worried calls from your mother
that you won’t return because you’re too busy trying to live and love your life where you are
But why is it so difficult.

You look for love in work
In mundane activity
to distract you from remembering that your heart is empty and isn’t it pathetic
Aren’t you so pathetic
That you checked to see if his car was in the driveway
Because if he’s home that means he left his door open for you to come in
But if he’s gone he didn’t even care enough to say goodbye.
And why do you let your love be carried off on the shoulders of a boy
Who pins it up on the fridge when you give it to him
but throws it in the trash when you leave
Who squeezed his arms around you in his bed last night and ignored you the whole next
day
Why do you search for love in the kisses of his parched lips
In the sound of rustling sheets like crunching leaves when he flips over onto you and runs
his hands up past your knees
and around your hips and up to your chest
Because it’s hard to be in a new place.
Where no one loves you yet.

And boys in particular are so eager to give that love in one very specific form
And girls are so eager to believe that that form encompasses the entirety of being loved.
So when you slide into his bed that first night you think wow someone loves me.
And it’s odd to you when he falls short in the other areas of love
like caring.
And we know we know we know we’re supposed to wait and not give ourselves away like
flyers on the street for the garage band performing Friday night
But it’s hard to be in a new place.

So I search for love in crevices and in alleys.
I find it more quickly there than in sunbeams and up in trees.
But I suppose it’s worth it to wait for sunbeam love and tree love and end of the branch
kind of love. Love from people who remember my birthday. Who ask how I am
because they really want to know.
Love isn’t compliments.
Or ***.
But it really is hard to be in a new place.
Because no one loves me here yet.