All I speak is nonsense.
The words float around in the back of my brain
Waiting for their turn down the slide.
He tells me, your words don't flow
Quite like the petals from the rose that lays across your chest.
All the vocabulary I had to learn
To avoid the blisters on my back from the leather belt
That wrapped itself around my father's waist.
The dictionary I was beaten with if I did not learn its contents.
I can't look at your face because you remind me of him.
The gold buckle on the front of your waist
Matches the ideals in your mind.
I can't love a man who reminds me of the man
Who can't accept me for who I am.
I can't love a man because my father taught me
That love is a man yelling into your ear telling you to be perfect.
To change who you are to fit his image of a "trophy."
My mind is wired differently.
You may not realize beauty when it stares you in the face,
But I don't expect you to know it when it takes time to find it.
I can love you or that girl sitting on the bench across the park.
You can't tell me otherwise.