I was never interested in the kind of love that takes place in the daytime. I always wanted love that hid in the shadows, because as wonderful as love can be, and often is, it hurts.
I never wanted love that could see me bleed.



Love is soft, kind, holds your hand on the porch.
Love sits with you on the swing, in the park.
Love is candlelight, chocolate, a nice dinner.

Love is holding hands and nevermind
that palms are sweaty.
Because that love is new and
nervous, and hopeful.

That love is exploration, new touches,
electric tendrils caused
by kisses on the earlobes,
on the back of the neck.

Love is an evening stroll
that leads to *******,
waking in a bed that isn’t yours,
but a bed that feels safe enough
in the grey light of the pre-dawn.

And, anyway, isn’t it exciting?

This new place, this new person,
this new experience.

Love is conversation over a cup of tea,
a light breakfast, some good bread.

Love this new, this fresh, this exhilarating
won’t last, it can’t last, it’s too rich,
too many calories, too much sugar.

A love like this one is a mocha frappe.


The love I wanted was a 2:45am bedtime,
maybe a little hungover.

Maybe I’d been somewhere I shouldn’t’ve,
maybe she had.

The floor was littered

with unanswered text messages,
with missed calls that fell out
of my pockets like loose change
when I took my pants off and
hung them on the back of a chair,
too lazy to put them in the laundry.

Love that survives in these gray spaces,
maybe it’s real, maybe not, maybe it’s
mutated, adapted into a primordial
survival ignorant animal.

Love in the gray space, in the shadows,
in the storms, survives or dies,
but you, not it decides.

*


-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications