This isn’t a love poem. It’s something else entirely.
This isn’t a love poem: it’s a sunny afternoon with us airing our grief in the city park.
This isn’t a love poem. It’s that time you couldn’t stop staring at me rain soaked after we ran to the car, and the way your soft lips found their path to my forehead.
This isn’t a love poem – it’s just me. It’s always been me.
This isn’t a love poem, this is how I wish things were,
with us spilling it everywhere,
words on a page.
This isn’t a love poem: I dare you, try to tell me it is.
Break my heart and leave me worse for wear.
Make this year one I will cry about for a decade in every dark dive bar in this city.
This isn’t a love poem no matter how much we scream at each other. It never will be.
This isn’t a love poem and I’m not in love.
And I’m not entirely sure I am capable.
This isn’t a love poem and I am not ok with this.
I have labored too long and beat myself up
Over the pain and mistreatment
That my soul has endured in this life.
Please,
Don’t tell me this is a love poem
that is leading me
to be trapped in that cycle.
This isn’t a love poem. It’s just my heart ripping out of my chest,
and dissolving into words on a page.
This isn’t a love poem: this is my white flag.
Soaked in blood and sweat saying, “I… cannot… do this…
anymore.”
This isn’t a love poem. It’s a stillness.
A quiet moment right after the beginning raindrops.
A hushed whisper across a crowded cafe, “I’m glad I found you.”
A lost memory.
Maybe the time they got our order wrong
and we vowed to never go there again,
Lest we separate over it.
This isn’t a love poem. It’s a peace treaty with an “et tu brute?” a few seconds later.
This isn’t a love poem: This is me lying under oath:
This is a fucking love poem.
Timothy Arliss OBrien (he/they) is an interdisciplinary artist in music composition, writing, and visual art. He has premiered a range of music from opera to film scores to electronic ambient projects. He has published several books of poetry, (The Queer Revolt, Dear God I’m a Faggot, & Happy LGBTQ Wrath Month), and has written for Look Up Records (Seattle), and Deep Overstock: The Bookseller’s Journal. He also founded the podcast & small press publishing house, The Poet Heroic, and founded the digital magic space The Healers Coven. He also showcases his psychedelic makeup skills as the phenomenal drag queen Tabitha Acidz.
Find more at: www.timothyarlissobrien.com