El Oh Vee Ee

L-O-V-E, I love you

But sometimes I like to think I love my shoes

But trust me not as much as glue, sorry I meant you

At this point I’m turning red in the face

with an awkwardness I can almost taste

Might as well be a clown in my place

But one day i was sitting in chemistry

When our disheveled teacher pondered, “How does she love pizza but at the same time love me?”

What next washed over me took me like a typhoon

My mind’s contents waiting to bloom

The question rattled and wrestled with fate

What is love, how can it be so great

Those 4 letters encompass everything

Mother to child, friend to friend, talking stages, and maybe even fling to fling

But they also encompass pizza and shoes and maybe even glue

Love resides in heaven and in hell

Between people who yell and people who are unwell

Love is righting kicking screaming

But at the same time growing learning dreaming

Love is scary love is wild

Sometimes it is tender and mild

sometimes it comes on too soon, “I love you” what a goon

They don’t feel the same way

You wait for a response in decay

You realize love can scare away

I always like to say there are 3 types of love

1. A perfect bad match

The worst of the batch

People who get caught in patterns and can’t escape

Who leave each other in the worst shape

Preying on the things they hate the most

Insecurities waiting to boast

Stuck in a circle of manipulation

Once you’re in you can’t awaken

2. Learning to love

“Hey.” “Hey!”

“She’s kinda cute” “Ooo he kinda slays”

What goes on next hits just like a… mini cooper?

“He’s spectacular” “She’s super duper!”

Our tastes and goals and ideas sync

So maybe, I stop to think

We can work together day by day

To make sure this never goes away

Learning to L-O-V-E whatever that means

Maybe it’ll work! We both have good genes

3. Soul crushing mind bending head over heels

The kind you see in films

It’s not a question or a choice

It simply just is, a troop deployed

That takes over your time and your life and your mind

An aura, an intuition, but is it possible to find

And if you find it will it last

The butterflies, gratitude, or will it all leave too fast

Getting out of bed in the morning

The overjoyed, “How do I wake up and get to have you?” spilling onto the hardwood flooring

The kind that stops you in airports and cabs and trains

And even makes you forget your name

Is this the top tier? The Gucci of love?

Is it even possible because

No one wants to wait for a fraud, trick, shooting star

Is it a lifeline from afar

Or merely just a captivating tale

Will we wait forever to no avail

Love is vast and indescribable

Just ask and you’ll see

Nuances and caveats

Hard to catch

You can love but not be in love

You can love and hate at once

It can all be stunts

How do all of those and more

fit inside a single word

L-O-V-E a captivating tale, betrayal, jail, flail, but hopefully prevail

An indescribable shifty shape shifting word

As fast and fleeting as a bird

But pizza, glue, lovers or friends, the more love the better it ends

Because it’s love written in the wall of a mural, or on your dad’s burnt toast, or crooning from the taxi man’s radio, or in the bounce of that basketball

Its love in the fist bump with your teacher, or in your mom’s voice as she sings the lyrics wrong again, or how your brother when he gets home late at night makes sure you’re asleep

And, it’s even love in the pineapple on your girlfriend’s pizza