Not Young Love
Don’t give me young love.
Don’t give me young love. Don’t give me sweaty nightclubs with purple-white lights flashing violently behind heavy eyelids.
Drinks the color of sour sweets, with cheap alcohol and twice the price.
Don’t give me sweaty men wearing knock off t-shirts and muddy trainers.
Girls wearing underwear for tops, eyes caked in coal soot.
Don’t give me the girls bitching about another girl’s face,
then compliments her eyes the next day.
Young people who think taking the time to book a table in a cheap cafe count as chivalry.
Don’t give me guys who think taking a gap year equals charm and personality,
Girls who seem excited when their phones buzz to find the words:
“you still up?”
Don’t give me girls who instead of taking the time to figure out how they want to spend their lives, adjust to sitting nicely and quietly into someone else’s.
Don’t give me guys who speak words of:
“she’s a bit loud, a bit too much.”
Word’s like:
“she’s too much effort. One of those feminists.”|
Guys who measure a girl based on how tight her top is, if she fits into the palm of his hand and if she will fall for his recycled charm.
Who calls in the middle of the night… no!
They don’t even call, they text, Snapchat.
They ask to come over,
stare at for you a few hours and sneak out in the morning.
You never see them in the daylight.
And they call it ‘young love.’
Give me slow dances under glass chandeliers sparkling against string lights,
swaying to the 1960’s records.
Give me a suit, clean shoes, and real dresses.
Give me girls who fight back,
who know their worth and attract guys who find that alluring.
Guys who want girls who talk.
Talk about writing, art, and music!
Take me dancing to clubs where you can breathe,
have conversations and drink out of wine glasses,
not shot glasses.
Dates consist of dinner in one restaurant and a drink in a different bar.
Dates with walks along lamp-lit lakes,
Where he offers his coat that hangs far too heavily over her shoulders.
Give me handwritten letters, music with meaning, and days spent talking in the park.
We read to each other our favorite poems,
Write our own stories about the people walking passed us on the bench,
and laugh at the ridiculous possibilities.
Give me love that is so strong and intense that it goes beyond reason or sensibility.
Give me a love that lasts a lifetime,
so that when we’re too fragile to move to the music,
holding hands and staring at each other will feel just the same.
Going to bed in each other's arms in baggy T-Shirts and oversized socks,
more fulfilling than ten minutes of sex and excuses for foreplay.
Forehead kisses, gentle strokes on the arm, and quick kisses to the shoulder.
I want to talk in whispers as we dance in our living room,
for no reason as to hide from the rest of the world.
Give me candid photographs taken on polaroids, no filters. No stickers.
Love that is recorded by the hand in paper journals,
not typed words on the internet.
Give me rainy Sundays and autumn walks.
Give me old love.
Not young love.
-ARTEMIS INKS
