Architecture Of Ruin

They say I’m not romantic —

like it’s a crime, a flaw,

like I’m missing the manual,

like I skipped the part where love’s supposed to be pretty

and easy

and blind.

So I dove headfirst into the textbooks —

hundred thousand love-sick plays,

lovelorn poems spilled like blood on pages,

the masters of love and words

telling me how it’s done.

But here’s the thing —

textbook love is a lot like blinding light,

like staring at the sun till your eyes bleed,

and no one calls that love.

Love isn’t the glossy lies

slapped on magazine pages,

not rehearsed pretences

served with make-belief smiles —

no unicorns or rainbows,

just blood, dirt, sweat, and rot.

My idea of romance —

is the architecture of ruin beneath fragile skin,

the invisible bruises carved by silence,

the bitter coffee mornings,

the apologies swallowed whole,

the regrets folded like secret maps

to nowhere.

It’s a war zone stitched in shadows —

where ghosts trade fire with memories,

victories drowned in the smoke of regrets,

a discordant symphony,

played on strings stretched thin by time and truth.

It’s not perfect.

Hell, it’s as far from perfect as an atheist from faith.

It’s flawed, fractured, bruised by time and truth,

but it’s real —

the kind that doesn’t close its eyes

to the cracks,

but leans in,

holds on tight,

and loves anyway.

In a world drowning in fairy tales —

where love’s a product to sell,

a story polished till it gleams,

so glossy even fools flinch before believing —

I choose the battered,

the bruised,

the love that stumbles through hellfires

and still wants to stay.

Because real love —

it’s the late-night fights that bleed into dawn,

the silence that screams louder than words,

the knowing glance that says,

“I’m still here.

I’m still angry.

I’m still yours.”

It’s the taste of tears on your skin,

the weight of history on your heart,

the promise made not in grand gestures,

but in staying —

when leaving is easier,

when the world outside is a thousand reasons to go.

Does that make me not romantic?

Or does it make every textbook

nothing but a virgin’s thesis on intercourse —

all theory, no grit,

no blood, no sweat, no goddamn reality?