Four reasons to fear love

First

I met her when I was
almost eighteen
her hair was spun
from the claws
of just forgotten regrets
and her lips
kissed
like
car park
drunken fumbles

Years later
on my wedding day
I toyed with
the scar
left by her acrid laughter
on the back of my neck.
It was the shape of dishonesty
and often
bled

Second

I was never more naked
than
on the evening
her parents returned home
early
from the Rayners Lane Odeon
to discover us on the carpet
in their bedroom
our bodies smeared
with blue woad
and reticence.

I was wearing her mother's wedding dress.
Her father's face
was the crimson of
Oedipus' gore stained fingers
which
I have latterly discovered
is not a colour available
in the Dulux interiors match-pot range

Third

When I was bisected
by a surgeons cutlass
she linked my arms
around her
unusually broad shoulders
in an axiomatic daisy chain
and we struggle-staggered
together
to the bathroom
every day
for a month

Once I had recovered
fully
she set about
poisoning me
systematically
with the Lethal Furry mushroom (Cortinarius orellanus)
which she had personally sourced on a trip to the Ukraine.
How she loved a paradox

Fourth

She abandoned me
on the sea front
in Leamington Spa
buried up to my neck
in the husks
of a billion
taciturn stares

Her face was obscured
behind a puce yellow balaclava
emblazoned with an
inverted crucifix
which she normally only wore
to funerals
"This was love" she said
tiny shards of hubris glittered in the corners of her opal shaped eyes
"This was torture" I replied.
She stroked my face tenderly
and with practiced grace
she
head-butted me

"In the world I come from"
she said
"they are one and the same"