Romance is over. Don't try and woo me, ***
before marriage is the done thing lately. I don't believe
in roses or walks on the sunlit beach, I don't believe
in Sunday clothes or boys on their best behaviour.
I believe in making me laugh and when I say
"There's so much to see" and you say "I'm as happy
as I'll ever be" because you have no dreams, and I say
"Would you come with me?"

I do believe
in common differences and long nights in the freezing
cold because I have felt love with my head slamming off
a headboard and I have felt love with my head
down a toilet, vomiting up whiskey with my hair
being held by weak hands in a loose knot above me,
the noose of my dignity.
I have felt love while standing
in the ocean at midnight, off my face, and my friends
shouting "Don't swim!" Love is not angels or
cherubic babies
with wings, or seraphim. Love is just a thing
to con us into reproducing. Creating variation
of the species. We could make love
endlessly.