…On the Brink of Becoming a Nihilistic Pose

Love is not dead,

it is merely locked in its room,

listening to The Smiths

and scrawling the word “why”

all over the walls

with a felt-tip marker.

When it is in seclusion,

it gives the impression

that it is nothing more than a myth,

like a yeti,

or the lost city of gold.

Love is real.

Love is fragile.

Love hangs on to promises

that are more likely to be broken

than kept.

Love strums its acoustic guitar,

penning over-wrought lyrics

that straddle the line

between romantic angst

and cheap, disposable pabulum.  

Love has a self-belief

that is tenuous,

always on the brink

of dissolving into a

nihilistic pose. 

Love is not dead,

it is in its room,

on the verge of becoming a skeptic.

©2011 José-Ariel Cuevas