Saturday, February 15, 2014

What Hallmark Cards Will Never Tell You About Love


They will never tell you that love is a hot copper pipe on which you bet your day off, a parking lot into which you wander with a torn bag of groceries looking for a car you can't find. A Hallmark wish will never tell you that love is seeing your face in the morning mirror, haggard and worn, because you have been awake since two parsing the voices left unanswered at your desk; they won't tell you that love is forgetting to buy shoelaces because a sick child was crying in the aisle of the hardware store. No, they surely will never tell you that love is the dashed hope that tonight might be the one you dreamed when the day was young, that it is the surprise of a frost moon sitting on the hip of a mountain while you worry about the cost of a fan belt, radiator hose, and valve cover gasket. Hell will freeze over before a Hallmark card, crafted to wring tears of romance from your wallet, will ever say that love is hearing your defeat repeated in the words of children in the back seat and then feeling shame because you know you have passed on your poison. They might mention that love is the horizon over which a mystery travels, sure of itself as a heart that finds the will to beat one more time. And they might point to flesh thrilling to tender touch. But they will never tell you about the annihilation, the tumbling, polishing, final surrender that is the price you pay for love.  

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