i love you, i love you, i love you. i love you so much, the bruises don’t hurt. i love you so much they’re not bruises; they’re accidents, and they won’t happen again. until they do. until i black out. i love you, i love you, i love you. i see the bruises and i know that you didn’t do that, you couldn’t do that. the cocaine in your gums did that. the cocaine brought us together in a sticky bedroom nightmare, and drives us apart during fights at three in the morning; where the neighbors call the police and i run barefoot into the driveway for the second time this week to say it’s only the TV. or it’s just an accident, sorry, it won’t happen again. i don’t let myself think as i come back into the house and you’re already in the bedroom. my adolescent body comforts a grown man’s appetite. i hold my breath and let my thoughts run far away, far from here- here where my body is not mine and my mind fades in and out of reality. your hands are heavy but i don’t think about that either. you are not a violent man. violent men don’t apologize, violent men don’t buy flowers.  i love you, i love you, i love you. you buy flowers. you buy me anything i want, as long as it’s not expensive and as long as you’re high enough and as long as i pay you back. my currency can never be refunded, because i pay you back in a bedroom i hate with a body i hate and we go around and around. until i breakdown. cocaine knocks you into a blackout while i decay and stare at the ceiling through the smoke. you claw and bite and and strike and explode like a wild animal until i tell you i’m sorry. there must be something wrong with me if we’re in love and i still have bruises. i walk through this relationship with a target on my back. there’s something wrong and i’m sorry. at the end of the night after i perform for you i lay down like the dead until you set another ransom. you jump into my bones and i don’t call it anything other than love.  i hate myself, i hate myself, i hate myself. so i love you, i love you, i love you.