love me when it's convenient
love me when it is useful
love me when love is necessary
on the terms that
i stay simple, i stay beautiful

love me because your mother thought
i was pretty, i was quiet
love me because your father looks at me
like a *****, successful diet
love me until i’m not always sweet
love me until it’s not easy enough
leave me at the station
kiss me like your lips
have become strangers
just for me
and wish me luck

love me until somebody else better comes along
love me until i misstep to the words of the song
love me until those nights
you see me when i’m not strong
love me until it’s not profitable
until it rubs you wrong

my words are no longer useful
when they are not lucrative
your eyes are no longer protective
they are punitive

i am no longer a friend
just the tail end of another
distended friendship ready to
split hairs and end it
not a person but a thing
not a person but a problem
you’ve been dissecting

you don’t want to bend back
and mend, it’s easier to
wait it out, pretend away the tension
show your teeth, your venom’s condescesion
not so lost in your eyes
so resenting my mention

and i’ve been taught
not to stop giving
until you’re ready
for me to stop

and i’ve been trained
to drink up the blood when it puddles in
to treat people i attach love to
like my king pins
no one is just a lapsed vein

and i’ve been told
i’m not allowed to pull the plug
once i open my body
and let you dig into my love
so here i am, watch me now

to keep my ugly hidden
to keep my thoughts restrained
to keep the stains upon myself
cloistered and contained

by nature we are greedy
and you can’t seem to stop taking
because you’ve grown bitter dancing feet
and i'm aching, you say i'm not grounded
yet i’m a burden underfoot
and you wish i’d just break life
or break life in
and forget what it took

you want me to be punished
or you want me to go
you think i don’t know
oh you think i don’t know
you wish i’d just open,
then you wish that i’d fold
i don’t melt in the heat,
but i crack from the cold

your affection is grotesque
and my voice has a certain note
that makes you want to wrap each finger
tightly around my throat
you hate me, more than you love me
but i don’t want to be loved
if love barely stays afloat
you hate me, much more than you love me
and i was never told love
was so naturally cutthroat