Romantic Bullshit
Flowers on the doorstep, cheap chocolates in a heart-shaped box, and another bland card with words that sound like noise–
But real love never looked like the commercials, never dressed itself up in symbols for girls and boys.
You wrote a poem once, called me your muse, scribbled nonsense about starlit nights and destiny’s kiss,
But truth is, our love’s got more in common with traffic jams and overdue bills than any kind of mythic bliss.
We aren’t the fairy tale couple, no candlelit walks on a windswept beach, just two real people rolling their eyes at clichés,
Our best moments are when the masks are off, when the dirty dishes pile up, and the only romance is the fact that we both stay.
Keep your roses, keep your pastel balloons–what we have is built on the grit and grime, the friction and fight,
Our pillow talk’s more about who snores loudest or which side of the bed is right.
We’re rough, jagged, sometimes cruel, but always real–
There’s a beauty in arguments that end in laughter, in knowing the worst and staying anyway, in sharing every meal.
The world loves a show, but we gave up the act,
Stopped pretending that love was a spell or that perfect couples never cracked.
We’re not afraid to tear up the script, toss the cards, and call bullshit on romance written for the crowd,
Ours is the romance of broken things and late-night confessions, of making it work even when we’re not proud.
Honesty’s the only gift that matters, the promise to keep showing up when it’s ugly, when it’s hard,
Every scar, every argument, every failed apology, another thread in the life we’ve marred.
Clichés don’t cut it, and grand gestures fade fast–what lasts is the willingness to face the ugly, the bored, the tired,
Because real love isn’t soft or gentle, it’s sweat and stubbornness, forgiveness and fire.
Keep the chocolates, the scripted lines, the posed moonlit scenes–
All we need is the promise to keep doing this, day after day,
No fairy tale endings, no hero or heroine, just two flawed people finding reasons to stay.
We’ll keep laughing at the myth, keep living the mess,
Because the realest thing in this world is a love that survives the bullshit and still says yes.