my lover is not a warrior.
her hair is no barbed wires; her hair smells of summer nights, of iced lemonade and grass and sweat
and i can run my fingers through them endlessly.
her skin is no electric fence but oh how it jolts and sparks underneath my touch;
and her mouth is no trench and her lips know nothing of defense when they meet
mine.
so tell me why her body is a battlefield.
tell me why there are handprints around her neck from men
trying to bend her, why her eyes are bloodshot in the morning
when another one of us is shot.
tell me the betrayal behind every bruise, every aching bone.
and why she cannot return to a place she called home.
tell me again why our love is wrong.
tell me why when we lie together in bed i can only dream about laying her body to rest
and why people tell our stories in breathless whispers like
cautionary tales and dime novels.
tell me again how you conceal the blood on your hand:
‘’therapy’’ – such a fancy word for murder. i never knew you can make killing
sound so much like healing.
tell me why we have to be strong. look me in the eyes and tell me why we have to fight
for our lives, for our right to exist;
why we have to bleed for you to notice we are dying.
so let me tell you about our love:
it is not a revolution. it is not a protest.
we have no sin to confess.
our love is true. our love is holy. our love is a treasure,
and we are under no pressure to prove that to you.
our knees should only buckle under pleasure,
not pain.
and we don’t have to feel a hint of shame when we call out each other’s name
in the dark. we should not be mourning.
i love her, despite every bruise, every aching bone
and there is no other place that i would rather call home.
my lover is not a warrior
and neither am i. but we spend way too much time
bandaging each other’s wound.
i’m not asking for your prayer
when you should be asking for our forgiveness. you don’t get to laugh when we bleed
then claim to be our saviour.
my lover is not a warrior,
my love is not a war. let us love in peace.
Charlie is an 18 year old girl who is trying to figure out a way to maneuver the world as an outsider through art and poetry. More of her writing can be found on her blog: scripturlent.tumblr.com.