Why Not, Love

The ideas of revolution in my head

Lock themselves up in a closet

And turn their face to the walls

Every time I write about love.

Emotions are rarely congruent to guilt,

But the touch of your warm hand on my cheeks

Reminds me that we live in a country

Where millions of people are cold,

And dying.

Maybe they crave just a warm touch,

Maybe we are cruel.

We make love on a bed in a room

The latent heat keeps rising between us

Maybe we are guilty of stealing more warmth

Than we can feel.

Maybe we are thieves.

All these metaphors about sunsets and moonlight

Seem so futile

When the moon is the only source of light some people have,

They have to fight for their every breath.

And we go around breathing oxygen

Like we are entitled to it,

Like we are enlightened by our history books

That every breath we take isn't supposed to feel like a war,

But why not, love?

We

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wear our privilege like armours we do not need

As javelins of poverty pierce through bodies

That are not ours,

Maybe we are cowards.

We romanticize darkness because it allows us to not see,

We blindfold ourselves and make love under the star-studded sky

Because we have a home to go back to.

Some people don't.

Maybe the blindfolds, like us,

Don't do their jobs,

Maybe we are blind.

For people with eyes

Wouldn't dare close them

While there is so much pain around

Wouldn't want to be anything

But an island for the thousands drowning

But we chose to be lovers.

I feel like we are stealing lives

Living on borrowed time

From others.

And I feel like the least we can do,

Is give it back.

So when I don't kiss you back anymore,

Know that it isn't because I love you back,

It is because I do not want being a lover

To be my best qualification.

There's a war going on,

And I want to fight.