Love Like A Fight: A golden shovel after “Kiss With A Fist”

I really hated you.

No really, I did, especially when you landed that hit

That jump-started a new era of life for me.

I told my friends about you once;

(Maybe more than once) after that they became your tormentors and I

Finally felt glad that I could kick and hit

Without thinking of what it meant for me and you.

We were just kids back

Then when you

Looked up with your stupid doe eyes and gave

Out words that burned like venom. I was meant to be the one with a

Snake-like attitude. And then that senseless kick.

When my face started to burn…I didn’t know what the fight fully meant. All I

Knew was that you gave

Me butterflies in my stomach and I needed to beat them down like a

Good boy is meant to do when he sees a guy like you. I remember the stinging slap

Of my stepfather’s hand. You

Didn’t know about any of that until last week at the bar when we were both too smashed

To drive home, so you called a cab. A

Butterfly flapping its wings again, just like before. Staring at your name on my license plate

Made me want to rip the hair out of my head. I wanted this to be over,

But that was never in the cards for us. You’re my

Other half that the world doesn’t understand. Ying, yang and all that. A kick to the head,

An elbow to the back, that’s how we spoke, how we loved. But then

The fights became dances, us two too evenly matched. What was I

To do except prepare for another set?

Jersey boy you lit a fire

That will never be beaten down, just like you back in ’84. I still don’t know what to

Do with myself when you say words like “our”

When it should be “mine”. Because of you I despise being alone in bed.