Happy Valentine’s Week friends! I went back and forth about what I wanted to share with you all for our Valentine’s theme week. I considered sharing a love poem. I looked through my poems and most of the ones about love are sad, like this one I decided to share. I said to myself, “No you can’t share a heartbreak poem on Valentine’s Day!”, but then I remembered that I write poems because I think they’re a beautiful way to capture feelings that aren’t always pretty. Love isn’t always pretty, it’s not always simple, and it doesn’t always work out the way we thought it would.
I don’t hate Valentine’s Day. I actually like it a lot, despite how much I complain to my friends about people who post cute, happy, couple posts for V-Day. I think it’s a cute holiday. It’s all about pink and red, which are my favorite colors to wear. I don’t hate Valentine’s Day, but I do hate toxic positivity. Honestly, this past year hasn’t been great for my love life. I’ve broken my own heart a million times since last February by making the same mistakes, and right now I finally feel like I’m learning how to give love to myself and to the people around me.
But it took a long time. It took a lot of heartache, and it took a lot of work to crawl out of the heartbreak hole I dug for myself.
I don’t hate Valentine’s Day, but I’m not able to concoct a genuine poem about perfect, simple, long-lasting love. I believe that easy love exists for everyone; I’ve yet to find it, but that’s okay. If you’ve yet to find it, that’s okay. It’ll come in its own time. But for now, if you don’t have a Valentine, treat yourself the way you’d want your hypothetical Valentine to treat you. Go out to dinner, go for a walk in Manayunk, watch a movie in bed. Shake off the dust of heartbreak and find something new.
new
you’ve occupied much of my mind for much of my time. and now…
well, now i’ve decided it’s time to try and move on.
and yes, that’s easier said than done,
it’s easier to love than to accept that a love is gone
but it is gone, or at least going… going,
and soon it’ll be gone for good.
some part of me feels like in losing your love,
i’m losing my words.
all of my poems, every song, every word i spoke,
i breathed you in to every one.
i loved you with every rise and fall of my chest
and every scratch of ink on every scrap of paper,
and to let it go, to breathe only myself into my words,
to have to relearn how to speak for only me,
to write about something, someone, anything else,
that’s the hardest part…
it’s easier to keep writing in a language i’ve known
for so, so long,
than it is to accept that – like latin – our language
is going, going, gone.
but it is going… it’s gone,
and so now i pick up my pen,
and learn something new.
something more me, and something less you.