Many of us have gone through it – falling for a boy who already has a girlfriend and riskily continuing to indulge him, catching feelings for a girl emotionally unavailable, or beginning to date someone who for some reason wants to keeps your relationship a secret.

Here are two poems for anyone who has ever felt as though the person they’re with pretends their relationship isn’t real or official when there are other people around.

WORST KEPT SECRET

I do not want you if you only want me
with the lights off.

Too many people have loved me like a secret;
like porn magazines stashed under the bed;
like a period stain or childhood trauma
or a monster they’re fucking scared of.
No.
Love me like a line from your favorite song;
like a swear word; a nasty habit;
like the tattoos on your right arm.
Love me like a funny story
you can’t wait to share with family and friends.
Love, will you want me? Will you love me that way?

Turn the lights on, baby.
I want to be the secret
you don’t know how to keep.

###

MODERN MYTHOLOGY

We were cheating death
when we decided to fly faster than the
city lights high up the
skyscrapers where we thought no one
could see us, like we were gods
waiting to be carved out by the
Byzantine. They told us we couldn’t be gods,
we were mortal. And we were cheating when
we laughed as we spilled the moon
on our laps and showed them
we could bleed without bleeding.

We were cheating life when we
cut the night short and stepped off our
pedestals, when we decided we would be
myths behind the door of my apartment.

We were cheating ourselves when we opened
Pandora’s box without thinking, when we thought
we could kiss without our teeth breaking.

We were cheating love
when we left the room with our clothes on,
when we left my room that morning with
ambrosia on our skin.