Fluff
My love is simple, uncomplicated,
unencumbered. Take away
the romance and promises and
poetry, it stays the same.
It is not presupposed on anything,
like you loving me back.
It is direct, blunt, nonnegotiable,
like fact.
There’s no denying love like that.
No mistaking it.
There is nothing imagined about it.
It’s as real as this chair I sit on. Or
that beer you drink. And
even if you don’t want it anymore,
it doesn’t make it any less real.
Your rejection did not make
my love go away like some fever
or affliction that I suffered.
It’s still here.
A cold, hard fact.
Like the hurt that I live with
like an unwanted guest.
This love, this hurt, they
are not illusions I inflict on myself.
They’re as real as matter,
perceptible
in all three dimensions.
I feel it, see it, hear it,
smell it, taste it.
You may think otherwise, or probably
don’t even care one way or another.
But that doesn’t really change anything,
does it?
I hardly know what to do with this love
since you don’t want it.
And I don’t know what to do with this hurt;
I don’t want it.
Sometimes I wish it’s you I imagined,
that you were never real.
But that wouldn’t work, would it?
You are a fact, too, after all,
just like my love,
and just like this hurt,
that I have no choice but to live with.
So I guess I’ll just be playing injured now.
I suspect it’s going to be a while,
but at least I’ll still be in the game.
I’ll see you around.
