I

Am I to settle for a lie…

Something deeply known within my heart

to be false.

If you were love you would understand me.

In a way that I can trust.

I knew a man once — who did love me.

The way I needed to be loved. He let me go.

He let me be. That was enough.

II

I cannot settle for a liar, a

match made out of despair. Even though right

now I am in this pit; this pitiful pitiless forest

called life. I don’t know where I went wrong,

where I zigged instead of zagged. And yet I long

for a love that makes me feel as though my skin

were kissed by the sun and bathed in coconut milk.

Instead of lard; the cold

oily drippings of leftover pig grease.