Not gentle, not false

some women want love
like warm milk and honey,
like a white handkerchief with dainty lace,
like socks folded tidily in pairs,
like a door that closes quietly
on the whole goddamn world.

good for them.
I mean it.
let them have their slow Sundays
and their careful sentences.

but me…
I want the kind of love
that shows up sweating,
panting, grunting,
late,
with its mouth full of truth
and its pockets full of disaster.

I want you different from me
in the old way…
the blunt edge and the open wound,
the storm and the flood.
masculine like a dare,
feminine like a knife kept clean
for only one reason.

I don’t want to be handled
like a museum piece
with air kisses that don’t stir any dust,
that don’t shake the furniture of my soul,
that don’t knock the picture frames crooked
and make the room admit what it is.

I want a love that’s uncontrollable…
not those carefully positioned engagement photos,
not that staged, syrup-lit proof
two people rent for the camera,
fake as fuck and framed like a hostage smile.

I want the real thing…
the kind that can’t keep its hands polite,
that forgets manners, forgets angles,
that grabs for truth like it’s air,
like it’s drowning in daylight.

I want you to plunge toward me
like you can’t afford the distance,
like your body is a confession
you’re sick of carrying alone.

grab my wrist…
with resolve,
make me gasp…
and let it be understood
I want this,
I chose this,
I’m here for the holy wreck of it.

let me not tear myself away from you,
let your grip say, “stay,”
say, “I’m here,”
say, “I’m not leaving you to your thoughts again.”

I want rough
because it screams now.
because it’s honest.
because sometimes tenderness
is just fear wrapped in perfume.

I want the purity of passion…
the kind distilled
out of desperation,
out of the blunt apology
of two people
tired of pretending
they don’t need anyone.

I want the shaking to happen
in places nobody calls romantic:
in the hallway light,
in the tired clock on the wall,
in the dumb, faithful sink
still full of dishes…
like even the house can’t stand it,
like the wallpaper is listening
and losing its religion.

I want thrusting…
not just bodies,
but truth…
thrusting through the ribs,
through the excuses,
through the neat little lies we wear to work,
until the heart breaks open
like a cheap lock.

I want unbearable…
an unbearable sweetness,
an unbearable admission,
an unbearable yes
that makes my pride crawl under the bed
and go quiet.

I want the kiss
that’s half hunger, half argument,
and the silence after
where you finally tell me
the thing you’ve been choking on
for years.

I want you to look at me
like you’re not proud of it,
like you’re not safe inside it,
like you’d still choose it.

some women want soft love
that never breaks a glass,
never raises a voice,
never drags the truth
into the light by its hair.

I want love
that can’t sit still.
love that shakes.
love that sweats through its shirt.
love that says,
I’m scared,
and still comes closer.

touch me like the world is ending…
with inner violence,
with ferocity,
with that animal sincerity
that doesn’t know how to lie.

and when it’s done
don’t romanticize it.
don’t call it pretty.
it is not.

just hold my face
and tell me
what you really are.

because I don’t want gentle
if it means false.

I want the rough truth,
the raw mouth,
the urgent hands…
the kind of love
that leaves us both
a little wrecked,
a little saved,
and finally
very
quiet.