I wanna talk about love.
Not real love,
but the all-too-often tossed around verb-noun
with dying dimensions and less than honest pretenses.
I wanna talk about a love that means
"I like your hair and the way you give me attention when I need it."

The love that insults elderly lovers.
The love so fleeting in its definition
as shallow romps beneath the covers.
I wanna talk about a love
photo shopped and pixilated and
twice daily updated.
A love in late night click clacking on keyboards.

I wanna talk about love with a lowercase L
accompanied by a "less than 3"
and maybe a winky face on a good day.
Lets talk about,
not text about
the way we justify and simplify the world's most powerful word
to brief smiles in passing:
terms of affection neverlasting.

I wanna talk about a love where intimacy is
stripped forms on cold web cams.
A love where
tender loving care are spread hands
that touch
and steal from a body.
The love that compares beds and bases,
nameless faces.

I wanna talk about a love of
written and ripped romances.
Young hearts strung out
in thought-out complex fantasies:
passion and depression soaked plans and schemes.
I'm talking about a word spat through young lips
before the brain could sort it,
fluttering out the other side
disfigured and contorted.
The largest lie ever believed.
A theft of affections never reported.

Lets talk about the love we settle for because,
lets face it,
real life's too far from fairy tales for us to dare.
What makes us too young for the love our grandparents shared?
We're too afraid
of hearts in our chests on display.
We’d rather huddle in hiding
tossing loose leaf love notes
over home-made brick walls
and you’ve got the gall
to call that love?

Real love
REAL LOVE
is something larger than a cell phone text field.
Larger than simply the way your hips and your lips feel.
It's what you get for letting your skin peel.
For digging deep and finding the something real
inside yourself is:
the writhing tendrils of your soul
you find wrapped tight round
someone else's.

I wanna talk about
the love we pray to deities for.
The love we hope and plead and bleed for.
If you can listen closely and hear the lonely scream for it,
if you can't last a single night without a dream for it,
I wanna talk to you

about love.