Love is Pain

a kettle screeching-
water boiling hot
from the flame licking
within the iron grates
like ears ringing with urgency
like a scarab in the brain
How the sound is almost
deafening.

like a paper dripping
with a drop of ink
that you try to wipe away
and all it does is smear
and you try to make it
disappear and all it does is tear,
too damp and thin
for any more friction.
Left stained and worn.

Like a sunburn on  your skin,
itching an peeling and 
how scratching it feels
satisfying despite the sting
Like the soreness of my muscles
after three consecutive days 
of working out. I push my fingers
into them. Like you biting my lips
until they bleed and how I 
lick them clean.

Like that corner of the room
you always missed. The one I 
never cleaned.
How the dust piled
How the ghosts settled
The perfect place where 
all the spiders made their webs
and how everything that went there
never came out. Like everything 
went there to die. How we ignored
it. How we covered it up. How you told 
me that the chair would look nice there
How you kissed me in it.

Our love
like hands over
closed eyes on Fury Road
- afraid of the drop
pretending like it never existed.
Like maybe it would make it safe.
Like maybe we would still 
make it to the end unscathed.
Like maybe our hearts wouldn't
still be beating outside 
of our chests. 

Our love like there was
never even love at all.
Like a drenched world,
flooded and tree-broken
without ever even
seeing the storm.

Our love
like a blade.
One of us, the killer.
One of us, the martyr.
How we'll never know
who was the first
to hold it.