what is love?

what is love that doesn’t hurt? baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me. what is love that doesn’t consume like my stomach acid rising up my throat & eating away entire days & my whole warped & sagging brain & my fear of dying alone? no, my fear of dying unloved & small & unimportant & never mattering in a way that matters. what is a sunset that never burns pink, that never cries silently for the day left behind? what am i when in a love that retains a personhood i’m not even sure is the person i want to be? i don’t cry much. i don’t feel the monster ripping out of my chest to devour you whole so that i may keep some part of you wrapped in my hair, stuck like a bezoar never decaying in my bowels. shhhhh. go back to sleep. i’m just praying to a god that may or may not take delight in watching me entangled in my own mess of defrosted teeth & shredded angel wings. i’m just praying for you. & that you won’t love me back, if i even love you. do i even love you? what is love that doesn’t eviscerate? doesn’t massacre? doesn’t war crime a soul never fleshed out & never embodied & never solidified in the amber goo? what is love that questions but does not confuse? what is love that lies silently & aimlessly & unspoken in the dead of night? what is love? love, don’t hurt me this time.