what is with men and love?

I want to love someone
like the man who loved me over summer:
incessant, unapologetic, honest.

I like to honour him that way -
even though he was merely obsessed
with his idea of me.

My kindness is painting him with duller colours,
so the red that seeped out of his soul
is confused for the colour
running from my hair into the water.

I am learning that my womanhood is often enough
when it stands alone, though wound with tradition.
The first man who loved me taught me that:
regardless of my wit, my passion,
it was enough to look pretty, to die,
to have my womanhood resurrected as a mother.
He never cared to know me at all.

So when a richer man came by,
I was no longer surprised
that he could only speak of himself -
careless, selfish words about his honour.

The only thing I marvelled at
was the cheesecake in the counter,
and how it was my mother at 35,
my five-year-old self in a green jacket.
And with every move he made,
I was glad to be spending his money.

Then another man held me high.
He placed teak and oak beneath my feet,
and all the paths I took
shone with pebbles loved by chattering brooks.

What good is passion if it lacks ambition?
Yet he taught me to be kinder, livelier.
Perhaps empathy was the only thing
meant to be gained there -
for the melodies he wrote
could not stir up the love
he had for me, in me.

Oh, what a shame:
the last man gave up on me,
because the crumbs were not leading anywhere.

Alas, I cannot pretend to love
that which I do not.
The desire to love comes easy;
rarely does it come with the knowledge,
the realisation that love must be incubated -
like waiting for figs to soften
before they can be savoured,
before they can grow another tree,
another pair of figs to ripen.

~៷