when we're younger we feen for love
we crave something we've never felt before
hence why I was obsessed with Twilight novels
and cried during every Nicholas Sparks film

this is when we're barely growing *******
and boys are fascinated by bras and thongs
only later to love what is underneath them

we get older and experience grows
we eventually fall in love
maybe once
or maybe a hundred times

and every time it happens
it just gets harder and harder

we all let that one person in
they see all of our dark crevices
you parade the skeletons in your closet

and for a moment
sometimes longer
we think that this might be that person

but things get shaky
and we say things we don't mean

some of them move across the country
and others escape inside themselves

the ones we love are not always lovable
or they don't love us back

we build this thick skin
we hide behind drugs and alcohol
and we get too ****** up to remember when he held you in the middle of that field

we build up these hard walls on the outside
only because we are afraid to admit our innards are mush
and we can't take anymore heartbreak

because we gave ourselves to them
every achy memory
and they held us there
as we sobbed
and screamed
and punched away our demons

so now we are all afraid to love
because the purest thing we ever did feel
turned its back on us

love morphed into a demon within us
revealing its ****** teeth that were plunged into our hearts

we tell ourselves that we will never love again
for it hurts too much
and we are all too broken for anyone to love us again

that reassurance he gave you
disappears
it does not matter what he told you in that early morning shower
or how the warmth of your bodies came together in a foggy car

that is all the past
no matter how we reminisce we cannot get the love back
the purest of it has left us

so why is it when playing the field, we become so scared and insecure?
putting up this confident, independent front
where in reality we're praying for your acceptance?

women read loud magazines with advice columns
because we can't get the one on ourselves anymore
we're too insecure
and advice columns from a loud magazine somehow fit all of our situations

those bright words in that loud magazine can't fix the emptiness he left you with
when all you wanted was to be loved
and he couldn't give you enough of him

because he was broken too.

Sometimes those loud magazines are right
only the instance when they tell you to "be yourself"

it worked the first time didn't it?
a questionnaire in Cosmopolitan didn't tell you how to act that summer
your tactics from Manthropology 101 didn't get him to sit by you

it was your smile and the up turn of your eyes that made him fall in love with you
the sunshine in your hair and the freckles on your shoulders

he might have went away, but only for the fear of getting hurt like we all have
it wasn't you the second time around
one day you will need to accept that

So just be yourself
because that boy staring across the way at you
he isn't interested in your flirty planned out text messages
or the new lip stain that Glamour's guy panel has raved about

it's the blushing in your cheeks,
and that contagious smile
that got them all before.

So why stop that feeling again,
although you're scared to love,
why stop something that made you feel so complete before?

If he can give you butterflies again, an old self would call you foolish,
foolish for not taking your chance on the nice guy at the center.

*"It is a risk to love.
What if it doesn't work out?
Ah, but what if it does."
- Peter McWilliams