You Are A Frighteningly Beautiful Wild Thing

There are boys
who are going to promise you
forevers in song,
in poetry,
in words that are just so damned pretty
they will be hard to resist.

You’re their dream girl.
Beautiful, strong, independent.
Forever, they sigh, forever.

But their forevers come
with hidden terms and conditions, their love is a secret contract,
with addendum and asterisks.

Forever is only
until you start dreaming too much, talking too loudly,
kissing too strongly,
and debating too heatedly.

It’s not girl-like, they will say,
you’re hard to understand, they will rationalise,
impossible for anyone to put up with
let alone love.

Can’t you be beautiful in limitation?
Strong sometimes but weak more often?
Independent whilst being helpless?
They will ask you to be
all these impractical things
without thinking that these
are all the same qualities
they once fell in love with.

They are going to make you doubt yourself, beautiful.
And even then, even when they have wronged you,
misunderstood your debates for insolence
misinterpreted your strength for arrogance,
you will reach inside yourself
to find the things they are looking for,
because you want — you need to be loved.

You will learn to talk quietly,
love gingerly,
dream a little less,
let him kiss you instead.

Stop.

You do not need to change yourself,
for boys who fell in love with
a beautiful, wild thing
that they are too ill equipped
and must cage to ‘handle’.

You do not make yourself less
when you are a comet filled with such power and intensity,
that you are
waiting to blaze
across this universe.

You are unexplored, unusual
and frighteningly beautiful.
And only a few will understand
the way to love you
without breaking you
and making you dangerous.