this love is a curse,
a ship lost in unruly waters.
this love is cruel as steel:
we both taste of metal.

i broke no bones in this body
when our rope snapped, taut,
yet the quake of bitter reason
shocked both you and i to truth.

we cannot survive as one,
nor as one outside the other.
this love is a charging bull,
the scarlet flare of sorrow.

bending on two pairs of knees,
even the sky smells of earth.
this love is wretched, numbing.
without it, we would not feel at all.