love.

I believed you, you know
when you decided to tell me that you loved me
that you loved me more than the moon and more than anything and more than a fat kid loved cake and more than your momma’s homemade
pizza.

and I believed you, you know
when you said you wanted what was best for me
and you wanted to help me and you were proud of me and you wanted to see me happy and free and you didn’t care that i was that lunatic girl or that i was
damaged. 

but I don’t think I knew what love meant

because love meant 
hiding the evidence of my failures so you could be proud
and watching your dumb movies and pretending like i enjoyed them because i knew that’s what you wanted to hear and i didn’t want you to get
angry

and damn it,
love meant pretending i was never broken
and love meant never asking for band-aids to put on my bleeding, self inflicted scars because you’d see them and explode and promptly escort me to the
hospital.
 

love meant letting you kiss me
love meant letting your hands hold my face and
love meant standing like a telephone pole when i wanted to run as far from you as i could and so i just stood there and let you do whatever the hell you wanted because that’s what you meant by
love.