The Unknown Substance

I don’t allow myself to be loved.
That’s on me.

I must have known,
All these years I’ve been through
What is love and what is hate;
The difference between the two.
I accepted the nicest, most civil
Hatred I could find
Because real love is too risky.
Maybe I wasn’t blind.
I could feel the animosity.
I just believed in the Close Enough.
I believed I was impossible
To truly love.

But everyone will hurt you
Eventually.
What is love, what can it be,
Beyond a refusal to leave?

And sometimes
You have to leave anyway,
And some people
Choose to stay

To feed off your pain.
That’s not love.

Born in captivity, or
A self-gilded cage?
What exactly is love anyway?