what are you thinking

if I didn’t know any better,

I’d say that love was a

three-piece con between you,

another,

and your deepest fears.

if I didn’t know any better,

I’d say that love brainwashed you

like a tsunami,

drowning your rationality.

if I didn’t know any better,

I’d say that love became a habit

broken only by the clearheaded realization

of reality.

but hell if love doesn’t grumble in the base of your chest like pneumonia

and hang constantly in the black spaces between your ribs

and look like extra blankets and quiet nights spent reading in hotel rooms.

hell if love doesn’t belong to you like a left hand once it finds its way to you.