You Hurt Me Because You Love Me the Most

Loving me is fine art, acquired taste,
Lemonade sugar packets, gasoline
On your tongue before you suck a lit match
It takes like bitten fingers, someone else’s
Hands wrapped around your throat 
Until you forget to breathe but
It’s okay, I didn’t remember before, anyway
Mom always loved me easy but hard and she
Cries when I yell back, clench hands to fists
And she says, “you hurt me because you
Love me the most”
Loving me is loving the stains on my hands,
Wrist scars, sleepless aching, wanting to
Lick the surface of the moon and take it home
Wanting to kiss the face of a stranger and take it home
Wanting to know where on earth home really is
I think I left it in the back of a gold pickup truck
Poppa loves me in between champagne laughter
And we catch a thunderstorm mid-rumble
“you’d never hurt him like you hurt me”
Momma says, but she’s wrong
I hurt everyone because hurting myself
Grew tired
Loving me is shaking the earth. Crack open
Lightning in my jaw and i’ll show you my core,
Show you how ash can burn fingerprints
Show you how sweat can soothe the sting
I need you to tell me that loving me isn’t 
Cursed
Don’t curse, when you raise your voice I hear brimstone and hellfire
You have to know that your lips speak psalms
You can only hurt yourself for so long before
Your same scars exhale; they’re tired,
I’m tired, i
Want to hurt you
Loving me is confession, absolution, my body a church,
My breasts the eucharist melting on your tongue 
My sighs the singing of a chorus
My eyes reflect the light from stained glass windows
How do you love me like religion,
Adam and eve before I sink my teeth deep
Into soft flesh
And remember
Loving me is bad poetry, how I remember you
When I write you into existence again
Without the words you fade from metaphor
Your pain fills rooms with silence
I can’t remember what made you beautiful
Or mine