I Don't Love You Pretty

This collection of poetry focuses on the reality of love, without perfect lighting or rose-colored glasses. It revels in the fact that love isn’t always easy or ideal; love will upend your existence. Love is occasionally bloody. It is always a fight. It is worth fighting for. The poems challenge the idea that love is supposed to be, or always is, pretty. Love can be an entanglement you must find your way out of. As in the Theseus myth, it can be the ball of string that leads you out of the labyrinth. Or it can be the monster at the middle of the maze. At its least pretty, you’ll find that you are the monster standing in the center. Love has sharp edges and off-key notes; it is a ragged mess of hope and heresy. It is its own country. Sometimes, it makes chaos of everything. It is both a wreck and a reckoning. It carries its own secrets. And it might be madness, but it is (I assure you) the very best madness. Come – take an honest look at love. It’s time to examine the beautiful disaster.

ALISON A. TROTTA is a writer, poet, editor, and moment-thief, living on a steady diet of coffee and sarcasm. She is forever scribbling on napkins, closing her eyes while crossing the street, and singing along to songs at the grocery store. When she isn't word-wrangling, she can usually be found cooking, baking, taking photographs, or hanging out in parking lots.