This Love Chose Her

Come sunlight she woke up on the same couch where she fell asleep

She didn’t wanna touch him, she didn’t wanna speak

Her flannel wrapped tight around her waist, firm as a line in the sand

There was no fight in her fists, no blood on her hands

The quiet of the house was deafening, the punctuated calm before the storm

She had become accustomed to bruises, but so far only in civilized forms

He had made his peace with the way things looked

But she saw the skin fine print in every one of her mama’s hand-me-down cookbooks

He’d smile with a smirk

Offer space for the night

But his kindness was rigid

And never quite right

Like a statue of love

That forgot how to give

Too heavy to carry

Too stubborn to live

She didn’t choose this love

This love chose her

Like a flame in the night

Like a lie rehearsed

And it burned down the house

Left her cold and bare

But it pointed her feet

Toward the one in the mirror

And then he asked if it was ‘cuz of the kids or havin’ to go back to work

And she just stared right through him, having shunned her typical perk

And then he asked if she was even still in love with him

And her silence was decided and echoed louder than a shotgun scream

Then the bull came charging just past midnight

With eyes full of fire and fists ready to fight

His breath was hot with thunder, his veins were running red

With the last bale of lies that she still has never said

She never meant to fall

Never meant to lie

Never prayed for a woman

To be the goodbye

But she saw truth

In the moon that night

In a sunflower garden

Waiting for the light

She didn’t choose this love

This love chose her

Like a vixen’s howl

Like a match struck first

It cracked glass and bones

Like the hard truth does

Until she ran to the arms

Of a different love

When they walked to the garden, both barefoot in the dark

With stars falling all around them, burning off a lifelong heart unsparked

She plucked and laid a petal down in the palm of her lover's hand

And then the world was quiet enough, and she could understand

What path had danced them to this garden where the sunflowers swayed

Wishing all their wishes on stars that refused to fade

No anger not allowed, not here in this place

Just fingers laced up tight in a soft, saving grace

He bucked her down the stairs like a madman possessed

But she rose from the front yard with dirt on her chest

She heard her babies cry and can’t unhear what her mama said

To get back inside and lie in that bed.

But her car was already leaving it all behind, something else said go

She called her salvation over the hum of the radio

When she pulled up to the house with her soul in a sling

Her love came right outside and didn't ask a thing

As the bullfrogs sang

And the stars burned slow

She told her out loud to let the old world go

She didn't choose this love

This love chose her

Like a storm through the pines

Like a southern slur

But it stitched up the scars

And it made her whole

She found herself there

In another woman's soul

As the bullfrogs sang

And the stars burned slow

She said it out loud, she’d let the old world go