I wrote this poem in March of 2023.

How many times have I lied to myself
when I was young in believing some man’s love
would save me, would complete me
when all it ever did was decimate me
over and over again
but I refused to believe love could be anything
but beautiful
Until one day I learned to be honest with myself
and it was a lesson in dialectics
of how love can be both an ugly and beautiful thing