Here’s the thing:

I want to love

the way that those people on the silver screen

 tell you to love,

imply that love

is that farce.

 

She loves him

He loves her

She doesn’t love any of them.

What a tangle web they weave!

Why can’t they just have a threesome

and get over it?

 

See:

I want to love

with the intensity that implies

all that

 drama,

jealousy,

(is it him or him?)

possession

is what love is.

Is the only kind valid.

 

Reminder:

I do love

I love with the kind of intensity

that makes your stomach sick,

that makes you ache in your very bones.

My teeth and marrow

and ligaments and arteries

are full of the stuff.

 

Cut me open and watch

love come spilling out.

 

A rebuttal:

That’s not what they mean when they say Love.

Sure,

You’re sore with the effort of loving them

but,

You’re not in love with them.

Sure,

everything in you burns when you think of them

but,

You won’t marry them.

 

(Ignore, for a moment,

 that marriage only exists

 to trade women

and property

between men)

 

Nevermind:

My heart

and my mind

and my very fingertips

are overflowing with love,

 

the love for my people

my family

and friends

and people who are somehow

both,

neither.

 

And what does it matter

(if it matters)

that I’m not

in love with them?

If I don’t love them like that?

 

A parting shot:

Love doesn’t exist in one form,

it exists in a myriad of them.

And love certainly

does not exist

for capitalist consumption,

for greeting cards

and valentine’s dates,

and a ring worth three months salary,

and purchasing a 5,000 dollar dress,

and a nice house

with a nice (ecologically unsound) yard,

and a dog,

and 2.5 kids.

 

(No matter how much one wishes it.)