How do you love me let me count your ways
With an uppercut, a kidney jab, a backhand slap
Hair by the roots, jammed to a barricade, slugged
To the ground, to the depth your fist can reach
Freely, as men are left to do; purely, from jealousy and spite
With passion driven by monstrous ego, with hands and words
and knives and knees and covetousness of my body,
my choice, my dignity, my liberty, my land
With boots and bullets, tanks and airstrikes, with need
to prove your dominance, your excuses, your entitled rage
On court benches and my kitchen floor, in senate chambers
and through cities’ streets, on every step and stage
Seizing my smiles, my pleas, my breath
Despite all tears I’ll love you better after death
