Four Letter Word

Is love, to you, a four letter word?

For I have heard the whispers,

When you are among kin and kind.

To smile at me with bitter eyes.

Smiling lips painted with lies.

What strikes you in such a way

That I should live burdened by your hate?

Yet I am to stay in the shadow.

While you deny me my choice?

Turn so you don't hear my voice…

Is love, to you, a four letter word?

With heavy fists you fall upon,

And ink and pen you tread upon

What should be my own right

To pursue what brings me light?

What have I done but love?

To bring such wrath from you,

A stranger who I never knew

Until you heard that I was loved,

And you set to take the one I loved.

Is love, to you, a four letter word?

For what harm have I caused to you?

By wanting what you take for granted,

You say I have sullied what's sacred

And you have made my life a horror.

Should I not be allowed love?

Not only are spaces shared, lives entwined.

But a love for who I am inside?

When I stand before a mirror…