We’re All Lovers

We were taught to say

“I love you.”

To the people who we love.

To care for the

Spider web of cracks on their porcelain face,

And love the broken bits as if it were

The most wondrous happenstance.

Told to

Hold them regardless of

Whether they’re a plump bowl or a thin glass cup,

For those things do not matter and

Fade into the background at the sight

Of the overflowing beauty inside of that

Full vessel of a human being.

I was taught to love all,

For our world is too bleak and too dark

To not shine a light

Wherever we can.

“God is cooking in His kitchen.”

They say,

Making concoctions of humans who will

Fill Mother Earth’s womb

As if we come from the same mother,

Because we do.

But that darkness is ever waiting

In the untouched corners of our thoughts,

Stringing into bellowing shadows and

Things from nightmares.

It comes out at the command of

That young man’s grimace

At two women

Whose love is connected by skin,

And grows after

Every angry phrase growled

At those beautiful men

Showing off their proud love, like fireworks.

And looms over us just a little bit more,

With every banished lover, locked out for

Fearlessly loving.

I was taught to love just as you were,

By people who loved me for

Being me.

People who took in my cracks,

And mended them with blistered fingers.

People who chose to look at me as if I was

Anything but different,

Anything but broken.

For we are all mosaics of people

Made from broken pieces.

But why?

Why is it when love is fearless,

And hopeful,

And pure,

Why then do we choose to close our eyes and turn away

In disgust.

Why then do we stare in uncomfortable silence

As if they’re anything

But just like us.

Why then do we yell and scream

Our “morals” as if our thoughts don’t break hearts.

We are all made of porcelain,

Fragile and breakable.

We are all plentiful vessels,

Our love pours out like

Endless waves of the vast ocean.

So why should our own have to

Change their ways and change their love?

Why are they hated on

Even though they’re just like us?

Why do they have to

Fight for just the right to love?

We all know love,

And we all love.

So why are we

Building fences around this wild thing,

And commanding rules

Over this fearless happening?

Why do we choose to hate and curse

At lovers

For just loving?