Everyone saw something wrong with me
So they told me to look for a lover
Who can go ahead and fix me.
It made me think I was supposed to be fixed
By someone other than myself.
I wasn’t as capable and efficient as a man
Who can fix his engines as well as his women.
All of my past lovers loved me because they wanted to fix me.
They liked challenges, but were not very good at thinking of solutions.
After trying once or twice, they gave me a handful
Of plasters and dropped it on my palms.
It would end the same every single time.
I would break them
and they would break me.
I have never had the chance to tell them
That I wasn’t a screw waiting to be tightened.
I wasn’t a loose wire asking to be repaired
Nor was I as easy to turn on and off like a switch.
There is no switch.
Please stop looking for one.
I did not want them to fix anything.
I only wanted them to hold my hand as it shakes,
To say my name when I can’t remember it,
To give me a breath when I run out of mine,
And to whisper words of love on the days that I forget its meaning.
I have never asked them to fix me,
But, still, they gave me tools instead of flowers.
Somewhere along the line
Everyone decided to call that love
So I started to do the same.
I started looking for what needed fixing even though I have never thought of myself as broken.
Jan Lunette
13 May 2017
Jan Lunette 