Love

I used to use the word love indiscriminately

I would punctuate conversations with “I love you”

Like a long lost but now oft visited participle of speech

I'd foolheartedly proffer up my heart to be devoured by a wolf

I used to use it to describe things it did not mean

You see, I’ve been burned so many times before

And I see we’re both wary to go through it all again

Yet against my better judgement I feel myself wanting to say it

We’ve reached the point where in the past I’d already have said it

To infatuation, to romance, to good sex

Avowing love on one’s very first date

As I said before, it wasn’t a word I thought was best used significantly

Or rather I didn’t know what significantly was, so instead I used it naively

Suffice it to say that this kind of love didn’t last eternally

And yet I find myself believing that we’d do things differently

It’s like there’s something about you that lets me forget all the suffering

Without second guessing, I look into your eyes

Preconceived notions fall to hell

And I go into your arms without expectations

I want to call it love, but for us there are other things that love used to mean

Whether it be being used and abused

Or how he forgot your birthday

We put up with it, because that word made us stay

I want to say I love you, but I’m just so afraid

I say we should invent a new word,

For our new world, but on the other hand

Language does little to tell you what I want to say

So let us speak with our silence

To express the feelings that our vocal cannot impress

That in small steps the laws of communication do bend

We will not be held by the convention of language

And the constriciton of four letters that no one knows how to use

Let us be together

Though the virtue of what we feel

Not in love,

But in our own version of bliss & harmony

© 2008 Eugene Aarons-Cooke