love is devoted to nonsense

and it terrorises

a fortnight to valentine's—

every year i dread the commercial pink hearts

& bouquets of vendor's roses

my hands are paralysed

fingers disfigured in mid-motion

reaching out, halfway there

stiff, frozen, solidifying like stone

a monster of anyone's making

i am frankenstein,

reanimated but barely living—

my flesh greens, with sick,

with a desire to be buried under grass

married to the bacteria of the earth

(i want to be eaten, ravaged—

you promised me i would be)

i decompose before your desperate eyes

i am not the girl you met

i see people in couples:

two black women swinging to 50s rock in the neon underground

the whimsical teenagers peering into the bakery at dawn

children chasing the pigeon swarms

a husband kissing his wife before she hops on the eastbound railway

i see people in couples

where am i?

the mirror is empty

i am a vampire

seeking someone's neck

a monster of thirst

prisoner to my appetites

i end up consuming myself

i hold my beating, bleeding heart

in my palm,

gripped fist,

and i bite into it raw —

the blood spurts

and stains my fangs crimson red

— o, the colour of love!

i am a monster of love's making.

i am a monster for lovemaking.

the words swirl into each other.

i am not a woman without a man.

it's in the very word— can't you hear it? woman, woman.

the echo of womb. the man.

the marriage of sounds.

i see people in couples— how else?

embalm me in rosehip and myrtle,

bury me in the ground,

to this love i am bound—

o, my heart is a festering wound!

a feast for the flies!

not sure what this is. but i hate valentine's day. it's a shallow commercial hoax and i wish women weren't raised being told that romantic love is the ultimate achivement. anyways happy spooky season, stay safe