A Love Poem

Some days I wish

I could replace this throbbing heart

with dandelions

bright and yellow and sweet.

and there, where my breast-bone meets my ribs

the poets would weep.

Dandelions are not a symbol of love,

and how can we quantify the pining of our hearts

if the only thing filling the vacuum of our chests

is a weed?

And as the tears of poets fill my lungs

dandelions float into my throat

and I begin to choke.

The poets turn away

-back to sketchbooks filled with doodled hearts-

But with a final breath I laugh,

a bitter, victorious, thing.

What is left

when the poets can no longer

describe my heart as aching for its other half?

when love ceases to be the most interesting thing about me?

Even in the euphoria of my victory I know the answers to these queries.

Without a heart

I become worth little more

than the flowers that fill my chest.

When love is the currency of womanhood

it pays little to be a weed.

And the story of my life

would fit so neatly here,

penciled between a first kiss and a shiny ring,

as if my ability to love another

is the only thing worth remembering

at the end of the day.

But in a journal tucked at the back of my nightstand

I write of a girl who filled her chest with flowers.

Who slid a black ring onto the middle finger of her right hand,

if only to fill the empty space

left by a heart that was never there to begin with.

And the girl grins,

for when your heart is no longer fodder for halfhearted love poems

you begin to live for yourself.