Love Period (.)
I have been Many places inside love Pockets and corners Where insecurities hide Cowering behind thinly veiled Emotional traumas Exacting their violent revenges On young girls.
I have been seated between lies and fists Been held by rapists Licked by soulless men And seen through the eyes of Narcissus himself
I have been Queen of confusion Slouching atop my throne Knowing intimately listless love.
I have been loved The way an open palm Does the apple of one’s cheek.
Reacquainted many times Again and again Have been the eye of Death and I
I’ve kissed its Shadowy mouth And watched shards of myself Brighten its rayless cloaks Fitting themselves together Like Puzzle pieces.
Love has shown me its Worst Branded my skin With its reckless flames Oh! the pains it has inflicted The joys it has snatched.
My cowering heart Knows the hollows And crooks of love It fits snugly in its fine grooves
To be loved as I have Is to die A death that pleases, A torture that rips You up into Shreds of passion And pain Most of all, pain It is to lose one’s precious mind In the disarray of pointlessness Mendacity And untended wounds.
It is to be dulled And disillusioned; To know firsthand How futility dims the aroused.
© Ama Akoto (2017)