Love is not the relationships I grew up seeing...
Love is not the hurt, the beating, the screaming...

Love is laughter, cheer, joy...
Love is a little girl chasing a little boy...

Love is not putting on a forced, fake smile...
Love is not a pressured walk down an isle...

Love is patience for the slow and weak...
Love is, as it seems, a complicated, never-ending game of hide-and-seek...

Love is not picking... choosing... leaving...
Love is not that lustful, meaningless... hurtful, evening...

Love should be simple; yet always disguised love is hard...
Love, the love I've seen, leaves me silently, distortedly, eternally
... scarred.