The lonely nights with men

Love is odd how it circles us when we are not looking, coming around like birds or rings of water, leading us on, pulling us away, whispering in our ears of wrong doing and guilt. Love is odd how it plays pretend so often with our lives and we dress up in every role imaginable, explaining to those who never see that we are better in dresses and makeup than pants. It is odd being a woman and falling in and out of love, as it comes like a disease sometimes, that pit in my stomach of an unending fall, of a purposeful excuse to why they can never give more, or why I keep running into walls assuming they are faces. Love is odd how it talks like children in innocent disguises meant to be provocative, with sex organs and playful retorts, and half cynical outlook. I keep thinking it is wrong, this love of mine, as it is so upfront at the beginning, with its keys and its easily opened doors. and it tells me that I am grown up as it takes away all my privileges and power again. so I look like a helpless woman, an armature porn star who lets her boyfriend photograph her naked in the hopes of gaining a more loving husband.
 I walk around so easily with the thoughts of love on my lips as I talk in disguised tongues about my own future and past, watching the blood trickle down my face slowly, watching the blur come over my eyes again. I say I am a woman in a little girl's voice. I say I am independent while I count the scar on my wrist of how many times I have tried to commit suicide. I claim I am hero as I recount all of those who have fallen beside me. and it is odd to see the reaction on a man's face, his longing looks, his deep sighs of apologies for things he never did wrong, his explanation again of how the world works and how I must have some how wedged myself between two spinning gears. and I yawn and agree with whatever he has said, as if I am that easy going, as if I care about his reaction. as if it wasn't me alone, sitting across from myself, tracing my own face in the mirror and watching myself cry like an indifferent bystander would.