Love Junky
“Oh! I love him!”
my sister would cry
about each
consecutive boyfriend.
“Falling in love
is just a form of
female (self) abuse”
I’d reply automatically,
“Just another aspect
of feminine conditioning
and likened love to
corsets; chinese foot-binding;
female circumcision;
dieting; chastity belts;
witch burning; marriage;
E.C.T…
- oh it was all one to me:
a concept designed to keep women
safe - chaste...
I decided I didn’t need
the palliative of Romantic love,
wanted none of THAT
escapist fantasy
into which women fled
the drudgery of their
kitchen-sink realities
to walk on cloud nine:
that candle-lit, wine-hazed,
rose-hued, strawberry-soft-centred
heart-shaped
chocolate box
dream.
Oh I would NEVER
fall in love
No No not me...
Then of course
I did precisely THAT
and I too ‘fell’
and over-night I turned
from a precise, controlled
individual
into a wild-haired
and red-eyed
alcohol and cigarette fuelled
blood-lusting
sex-addicted creature roaming
a landscape transfigured
by my love-induced hallucination
riding high on a hurricane cloud,
wanting more and more and more
of the love-drug,
immune to increasingly larger
doses, needing
frequently injected shots
from my cupid’s arrow...
I developed a frenzied dependency
upon him,
suffered all the cliché-ridden
symptoms
of cold turkey following
the withdrawal of his
affections.
Oh I became a regular
love junky,
I couldn’t sleep or eat,
my body shook,
I constantly felt sick,
was bruised all over
and
the last time I saw him
the strawberry sugary syrup
of the sweet endearments
I had meant to softly speak
clotted in my throat
to black blood
and instead I vomited up
the mashed raw-liverish stream
of my putrifying love:
bile bitter abuse
at the man who had dared
to refuse
me.
Oh yes
I discovered
love was no Chanel No.5 scented
dream but a charnel-housed
nightmare, one long
bad trip.
And now I am - of course -
a reformed character,
a love-free zone
and like an ex-smoker
I constantly battle
the temptation
for that single
head-buzzing
hit.
OK perhaps I am a little
over-zealous in my
anti-love schemes,
I admit I want it
wiped from the streets
so our cities can become clean
again, young women’s lives no longer
ravaged by its
narcotic effect,
gun-toting I stalk the city
ready to shoot
any love dealers on sight
THOSE EVIL MEN!
Listen kids, believe me,
it’s better to
just say no...
Page(s) 115-117
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The