My room is cold

I woke up at 4am and felt sick

I sat against the wall and started crying thinking about

When my dad cheated on my mom

And I took his side

Hoping

That would stop it from happening to me

Don’t get it wrong I’m not mad at myself

The next time he tells my mom some actress is prettier than her

I’ll say I better find a man that’s not like you

That won’t look at other women

That isn’t scared of love

Sometimes I think I’m so brilliant and brave and useful

But then I hear a singer write a song about something I couldn’t face or solve for ten years

After I ended it with maybe the third boy who wanted to get married

He laughed and called me runaway bride

But does he know how I hurt those boys who really loved me and wanted to treat me right but I’m not attracted to that

Does he know the plot of that movie and why she got that way

You asked me to love you and be brave and open when you couldn’t do the same for me so I wandered around loving things for no goddamn reason so when he made promises I didn’t realize I was slipping into abuse

And it took thirty years to realize that love means someone loves you back

Im tired of emptying my empathy into you just to wake up and get a coffee

I ask myself how did it feel

How did it feel every time I go towards people that hurt me and walk away from the ones that don’t

How did it feel living in black and white and only being able to read and write about love that I never experienced like the shadows on Plato’s cave when you read me that story at bedtime

I’m not going to be mad at you anymore because you can only be mad at someone you love and you can only love people who love you back

Those are my laws of love