Love Is Like Poem by Yiling Ding

Love is like
the smell of cigarettes
and the taste of vodka,
sharp in the tongue.
A ringing in my head,
like a persistent siren of chaos,
mixed with
the clear, piercing chime
of your damned sexy name.
I'm drunk and hungover all at once,
and the dirty tobacco
scattered all across my skin
brings on a fire,
coursing through my body,
until my heart is left weak
and the smoke clogs my lungs,
breathless.

Long away now are my clean sheets,
my crisp white linen shirts,
all the white clarity sharp against
the crisp green air, and
all that healthy self-control.
Instead, I go to sleep bare,
my naked heart exposed,
waiting for your madness
so it can cry itself to sleep with
its pregnant expectation,
letting all the filthy passion,
your narcotic perfume,
sweep it away into an adult's dreamworld,
never the same again.