Second-hand Romance

C.L. Gingerich

What is this love?

This second-hand romance

It was once so full of life

And happiness

But now is full of despair

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I’m dead inside

Going through struggles

Leading to no apparent ending

We relapse to our old selves

No one is perfect

Yet I can’t help feeling like

A third class citizen in your eyes

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I know I’ve asked you before

But I’ll ask once more

Do you love me?

Would you give up your petty ways

For me?

Would you grow up with me?

Or revert back to the age of juvenility?

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My greatest fears are coming true

You are not as you once were

The laughter that comes from my lips

Is tainted with a bitter frown

I can’t fake it for long

Such silly banter is not my style

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I would’ve enjoyed nothing more

Than to grow old within your arms

But now I’m not sure anymore

You’re such a Peter Pan

Never wanting to grow up

I can’t take it much longer

I desire more

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But I won’t give up just yet

I have no thought as to why

God spoke to me that winter night

And said, “You can’t leave”

It was all so clear back then

When there weren’t throngs of bodies between us

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Do you know what love means?

Why must I cry for you and for me?

I hate it

I cry out in pain, in anguish, in confusion

Don’t you love me?

What happened to our talk of the future and family?

When I can’t even see past tomorrow anymore

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I fall to the ground and moan

Weeping for what you don’t understand

Nothing I say seems to penetrate

I don’t want to control you

But can’t you respect my needs?

I lay on the cold tile floor

Crying out to God in terrible groans

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I LOVE YOU!

But day by day I wonder why

You change every time you leave me

Coming back, you’re a stranger with new theories

It’s not you

And I don’t like it

Stop trying to fix everything by your self

It’s not your responsibility to change people

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I want to be your support

But all I feel from you is empathy

Our lips do not meet so passionately

As they once did

I miss our zeal for life

What has happened?

What has happened to this love?

This unstable, breaking romance

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Am I worth it to you?

To fix this… this mess of our doing