laborare est orare

today
and here's a name,
nothing but a name
written across my clenched
fist

love

real love isn't beautiful or tragic like
hollywood tells
it does not conquer mountains
or heal wounds
it does not resurrect the dead.

tears don't turn to blood when it's
love

love is not beyond words
or sentiment
it is not the greatest of all
emotion
and it does not write poetry
as it unfolds
naked between the sheets

love sounds like hope
like the religion of the old world
where work was worship and
it was faith and fear we believed in

love has no colour
beyond hurt
or the sound of lies as they fall
hot across our pillows

it is not the cancer
that blinds men
at its
climax

love is too easily confused
excused
with lust and
cowardice

it is too easily the name
given to need
and melodrama

love is failure
it is guilt,
sorrow;
the flaws of a lifetime
forgiven in an hour

love is belied by wisdom
and terror

love is the song sung in trenches
across history's wrinkled palm
it is carrying what is
too heavy to bear
because there is no other choice
but burden

love is a poet's fingers
stained with the ink that grieves
a face;
a familiar scent
left in the seams of your favourite shirt

love is the trust shared between two people
with no future

it is the ugliest,
lowest
way
to wake up:
in love,
breath sour with regret
and a name,
nothing but a name
written across your clenched
fist

today.