L / O / V / E

I hate that he has made me feel this way about love. That I can't look at a Neruda or Wordsworth poem without the cynicism creeping in between the words. Certain songs make my stomach churn with disgust. Instead of writing seamless expressions of love, I compose a formal dissolution in a language foreign to my heart. He is not the man painted into my memories from our wedding or the work of art I configured in my mind. Now, memories conflict with the present and, something that was so difficult to keep together, has effortlessly dissolved itself into nothing.