Assortment of Eight Loves at Eighteen

I have decided to die

(For the hundredth time)

Every time we part

I tell my friends “I love you” instead of “goodbye”

My 12-year-old sister and I share a bedroom

Each night we chorus “I love you”

Smiling, our mother echoes our voices

Quietly closes the light and shuts the door

People describe their studies, their professions

They use the word “love”

I do not have enough love for being alive

To find love in anything I study or do

My friends are dating

My friends get married

I stand behind in confusion

I was told I would understand when I got older

I work at a summer camp

Girls ask me for help and advice

Come to me with secrets and tears and questions

They pour faith and love inside me

I think I may finally like a boy

We cuddle and when he moves his hands I do not say no

I dissociate and spend two months crying for reasons I cannot seem to find

This is a love I have never understood

A friend stays at my house

We share a bed and walk hand in hand

I confide that the thought of kissing makes me sick

She hugs me and loves me as a friend

I hug trees and sing to birds and feel the sun rise

I drink tea and write bad poetry

I take a shower without trying to burn my flesh off

I do not say “I love you” to the screaming in my head