—AND I DON’T WANNA CRY, ‘CAUSE NOBODY EVER CRIES, IF THEY’RE TOUGH

  

 

Love and Violence

 

 

You’re speaking English as a second language though no one’s listening and the air conditioning is up so loud not a single bird flies by unless it’s dropping dead, so instead you’re trying to explain it to yourself, how there can’t be love without violence because the letters l-o-v-e are imbedded in violence, the same way your father’s fists carved his name into your skin, time and time again.