Happy Valentine's Day

don't tell me you love me
don't tell me you love me
gift wrapped in pink tinsel /red ribbons/ silver confetti
spilling from plastic bags
onto hallmarked visions of insincerity or
sincere grandiouse inarticulateness
that grasps and gropes
to latch on to a word that could tie/pull/beat my heart into
yours like one more submissive victim of key marketing executives
just another shoe in for the target demographic
i couldn't stand still in a place that was so precisley bought executed delivered

don't tell me.
don't tell me you love me
with flowers pulled from their source/breath/life
i don't want my love to be bouqueted
up / saturated with the dank unwashable stench of death
where the waters are thick yellow murky
from rotting stalks disintegrating...

don't tell me
don't tell me you love me
through milk chocolate / sugarcane
artificial flavors FDC Yellow #6, Red 40, Red 40, Yellow #5, Yellow #6, Blue 1, Blue 1, Yellow #5,
with corn syrup
corn is just too opportunistic too greedy too manipulative for the love i want
and yellow number 6 took me home once but never called again

so please don't tell me.
don't tell me you love me
from a striped box from victorias secret
i don't want my love costumed in a mass consumerist
fantasy as if desire truly was directed from the pages of
a magazine
as if we couldn't smell the blood of exploitation
of chemical annhilation on this cheap synthetic fabric
as if my body wouldnt be able to feel the vibrations
of the screams held in by the young woman who
pieced together the fake satin and lace into
this shallow maxim concept of exactly what sexy is
i don't need to bring back what is already inherent

so dont tell me
don't tell me you love me with an earring that will fall
into the bathroom sink- a bracelet that would stain my wrist
a ring - as if love really could be contracted through a piece of jewlery
as if that were a promise that could always be kept
we are far along enough in this game to know
that promises are broken, that a jewels sparkle fades,
i don't want a love that rusts and cracks and goes away
when the hotel safe gets broken into...

so don't tell me.
save your money -
i would rather you went old school
with a mix tape
than buy me some churned up turned out burning tricks teddy bear that
i would let me dog tear up anyhow.

if you want to tell me
bring your a game
love
isn't passive
love is a choice
an action.
a doing.
the process.
i want you to tell me
with one glance from your eyes
with one graze from your palm
with one sigh from the back of your throat.
tell me
simple.
tell me
honest.
tell me
love.

and don't tell me only on a nationally syndicated 24 period of remembrance
i want to know every day
i want to feel it in every way
i want to know it.
so... tell me.