I Don't Know How To Love

I don't know how to love

I do not mean that in the broken way, of sadness and psychological madness.

I simply mean that my hands don't knnow how to be held

and I don't know what it's like to whisper to someone that you adore them

no fear, no frenzy.

And I cannot count hown many times I have wandered and stumbled in the face of romance , like a newborn duckling- odd and unsure-

Only to look around and see

others flying with confident wings

wearing their heartbreak and hopefulness like a badge.

So I wait, with unheld hands and lonely eyes

smiling at strangers hoping someone will come

who isn't so reckless as to love me and leave me

and not so careful as to pick my heart up, unbroken as it is,

and leave it to collect dust.