I am not the romantic I once boasted to be
I don't swoon
I don't revel in love or bathe in its insincerity
It doesn't call me a home that it feels welcome in

I've evicted it
Packed it's tendrils up into small cardboard boxes and stacked them on my stoop
A farewell to its tenderness I once believed in

I want to witness the shift in me
I want to see the moment my blood ran a little colder and my hands took to shaking when I think too hard
This frailty that's become my second skin seems like it's been home forever

I don't think I'm meant to love
I think I was meant to enjoy the way a person's eyes are spaced just right
Or how their hands connect to their wrists with grace
But I don't love those things

I'm not a romantic in the sense that I love the idea of love
I used to be
But I've become a half-flooded cave
Filled with currents and a heavy, wet, emptiness.