my love is violence

My love is violence.

Unrecognisable if unaccompanied by pain.

I take it with blood,

The way that others take it with sugar.

I don't know any other way.

Licked from a razor blade,

Or drip-fed by IV,

I can't imagine it

Absorbed through a hug

Or delivered wrapped neatly in a bow.

I was taught to moan for more,

When older men wrapped their hands around my throat

And squeezed 'til I turned blue.

I was taught to find pleasure in fading breath,

Tenderness in tears.

To crave a knife at my throat,

Or a gun to my temple.

Because what is love

If not brutality?