Liberty from your "Love"

Dear North Carolina,

In the name of love you once chained your weight to my heart

Your ever-changing blue-green eyes held me captive

While you tied a noose around my soul

You hung me from your slowly-spinning ceiling fan

And watched me choke out my desperation.

While I was left to rot,

You pursued my closest family.

You took my sister’s heart twice faster than my own

And used her as a weapon to taunt my limp body

The fault in this one is you claim you loved her before you met me,

And I was simply bait

If you love her as you say,

And you claim to sacrifice your world for her,

Then do it.

This is your test,

To sacrifice her,

For her.

The thing is, love is not remotely sexual desire

It is not obsession

It is not overdependence

Love is commitment

Love is independence and trust

Love is not an anchor

Love is allowing others to look at her like you do

Because you know she’s beautiful beyond compare

And you’re the only one lucky enough to be acknowledged

Love is functioning outside of him and his world

But still remembering him and the flutters his name gives you

Love is taking what you can get and respecting what you can’t have

Love is faith

Trust

Patience

Possibility

Dreams

Love is not what you gave us

You gave me abandonment and her obsession

I will not allow you to harm her anymore

I will teach her to learn what it’s like to love herself without being told

I will give her the freedom to breathe without your pollution in her lungs

I will show her the light of a world beyond your lips and a universe beyond your empty promises

She is too young to see her own hypocrisy

And you are too cruel to show it to her

Today has liberated me from you

And tomorrow will liberate her too.