I have never been a fan of Valentine’s Day. It isn’t bitterness or any nonsense like that, it’s the fact that there really shouldn’t be one day of loving those around you a year. It’s also the fact that fake holidays created by companies to sell more product are a bit maddening.

That being said, there are things I do love on Valentine’s. I love the little candy hearts, I love that all of the movies on TV are of the sappy, chick-flick variety, and I love seeing the delight of my friends on facebook all day due to the sweet things their loved ones have done for them.

My evening this year was spent with 3 adorable, tiny goblins. They were very sweet little dates. They had pizza, I had sushi, and we watched Top Gear and played cars in my living room. It was close to perfection.

To close, there is this amazing piece of poetry by Margaret Atwood which is followed by a piece of poetry of my own, although mine is clearly inferior to hers. It seemed right to compose some sort of poem like this. After reading good poetry, I always feel inspired.

Variations on the Word Love

–Margaret Atwood

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It’s the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn’t what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there’s the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It’s not love we don’t wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It’s a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

We Two

–Kristine Hamilton

Momentarily, we touch–
the light in the room flickers,
and fades. A breath’s time of perfection
hangs between our bodies as your eyes,
full of love and caring, pierce
into my soul. This time,
this small instant of blissful, genuine affection,
lasts— glowing like an ember, filling
me with sweetness. It is only for you,
only for me, only for we two who can
appreciate the rarity.
We are the ones who wait patiently,
the ones who know these touches,
these looks, can sustain— can nourish
through long droughts. Plucking
the moment from the air, placing it
in my pocket, I cling to it as I cling
to life itself— cherish it as I cherish
the air that sustains me. You pass,
but you remain, always.