why i hate love stories

can i have a story about a girl who loves a girl

and a boy who loves a boy

with all the typical endings?

with the sunsets and roses and kisses under the moonlight.

you know,

the cheesy hallmark movies, the "i love you as you are",

dancing in the street in the rain in an apology, anniversary, 

declaration of rebellion.

a story about a boy and boy who never kiss,

a girl and a girl where they don't fall into bed-

they don't even have to be in love.

just give me a story about them, and when i say boys and girls,

i mean people, real people, all people,

born and made and changed, loving and unloving.

because this is the story i have:

bruises like kisses on the backs of knuckles

who only wanted to hold hands. 

a love the way a bullet loves the body that it rips through,

the bullet being dysphoria, the body 

bound between two lives. 

another broken heart.

please.

can i have a story where the end the punchline is not

AND THE QUEER ONES DIED

and instead it's a story about how they lived

and loved, how people are more than just one story.

tell me a story about the world in which we are more than just a story,

a body as a warning

for the right someone else has over us.

viewer discretion advised.

who decided that the only life we are allowed to live is in fear?

whose narrator detailed the struggle, the hurt, the pain

instead of the moments in between.

the life we live only when no one else is looking,

god, i want a story with a happy ending and something good.

i want this life to be bearable.

is there a way to see love without breaking my own heart?

can i live a life without staying in the margins?

and the world says,

write it.