Trust

Luke says love is a
Hand grenade in a warehouse.

It is not when he looks at you and
You are only your legs and
Your hair and your breasts,
But it’s not trust either,
I don’t think.

The misery of it all,
So absurd and disturbed it’s funny.
Dead in the pan.

Love is not trust. It is not admiration,
I don’t think.
But you destroy his kitchen half-naked
And he still respects you.

You are not your legs,
Maybe you are your glasses.
He said he likes them,
He said you needed them.

He buys you a thesaurus
Because of all the words you are learning.
Big ones, and he doesn’t find you stupid.

He’s scary but you put
Your mattress in his room
And you sleep on the ground, because it’s him.
This is love, maybe.

Maybe it’s a hand grenade in your dresser,
Maybe it’s because he let you have it.
This is trust.

I say trust is when there is a grenade in his hand
(It doesn’t have to be in a warehouse)
And you hold him close.
You do, dressed in blue with nothing in your hair.

You put up with him
Because you happened to be there.
This is trust, it’s a bond.
Who’s gonna say that’s not real love?
Only him, but that’s because it’s him.

Real love is not when you
Are your mother’s maid whether
You did kill her husband or not.
Maybe it’s when you take a stand in a kitchen
(Not the one you ruined) with a kiss and a hair clip.
It’s better for the both of you.

It’s better for all of us if
We don’t get to know if you and him ever hook up.
We don’t. It’s better for him to
Not find out if you’re good in bed or not,
Not when he’s like this.

Because he’s in the police car and looks at you,
Not in the way he looks at TVs,
Just in a way that matters.
But he’s still not okay, and
You need more than your glasses,
Even if you put them back on to look at him too.

It doesn’t matter if you two ever hook up,
Hook up in the way many believe is the proper way to Make love real love.
Even before the marriage
And the baby you didn’t have.

But maybe you guys will.
When you two are okay.
Maybe when there are no dads
With overly clean bathrooms and
Moms who cheat at drinking games.

Maybe when the the only thing you need
Are your glasses,
When the grenade pin doesn’t ever feel
Like it needs to be pulled.

But love is when that need is still there,
And you place the grenade in your dresser
So it doesn’t end up in that warehouse.

And then it does,
And then love becomes what Luke said.