100 Themes Challenge: Love

I took a poetry course
a couple semesters ago.

My professor suggested
I stop writing about love.

That I should defocus my mind
from cliched happinesses
and pretty heart-flutterings
(love ruins the thoughts,
turns them to mush and broken fragments)
and instead focus
upon the gore of real life.

Love is unpredictable,
heartaches are imaginary,
but the everyday world
is out there for the taking.

I haven't stopped writing about love,
but I haven't forgotten
to take my eyes off my heart, either.

Love makes me sappy,
life causes scars,
and all we are capable of doing
is kicking our sneakers up on the table
and learning to deal.

Love.

It's just another name
for mindless jumbling about nothing but pain.

In the end,
everyone loses.

Love kills the soul,
life kills the heart,
and the cycle begins anew
with a crush and a breath of fresh air.