I’ll never work for Hallmark

If I could show you how I love you with this poem

I would, but I can’t.  Not even close.  My vocabulary

Can describe many things, but the thoughts that race

Through my heart when I breathe in what you breathed

Out are unintelligible, or unoriginal.

If I told you I’d die without you, that our love flows through me

Like blood, that I pine for you, and yearn for you,

And can taste this longing in the back of my mouth, you’d laugh.

After all, love is universal and you can bet whatever I say

Someone, somewhere has heard it before.

I could declare our love to be an energy saving light bulb,

It takes its time to warm up, and can, apparently, cause a rash,

But you’d roll your eyes and tell me we’re late for dinner.

So I’ll tuck my mind back inside itself, and let it linger

On the stirring of senses caused by your palm on mine.

I’ll keep these unspecific love poems to myself,

Hoping one day you’ll understand that I’m not so inventive

And when I give you my word, I’m giving you my all,

These meaningless metaphors and simplistic similes

Capture all of my love and describe it

Badly.