Simile (or Love Is A Four Letter Word)

In response to the Weekly Writing Challenge: Easy As Pie from The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Simile (A Poem by The Clueless Troubadour)

Love is like a helium balloon

Let it go and it flies away

Hold it too close and it is gone

Leaving only a memory, a ringing in your ears

And a broken piece of rubber tied to a string

The clown stands there, laughing and pointing

Like it’s my fault love and life are fragile

I should have gotten her flowers instead

 Okay, maybe I’m not a poet.

I was thinking about love the other day. It’s a word that means different things to different people.

As a baby, you love your parents, probably because they’re the only ones who will put up with your constant crying and filling your pants. When you get older you love candy and video games and whatever it is that Hollywood is trying to sell you this week. You get a little older and you get your first crush, which is quickly followed by your first heartbreak.

If you’re lucky, you find someone who’s willing to overlook the stranger aspects of your personality, and you get married or shack up. Maybe you have kids of your own, and you love them, especially when you get old because they’re the only ones who will put up with your constant crying and filling your pants. It’s the circle of life.

Either that or you get a lot of cats. Which are a lot like kids, in that they eat all your food and lie around all day. But unlike kids they will eat you should you unexpectedly die in your sleep. So there’s that to look forward to.

In ancient times, loving your parents meant doing exactly what they told you to do. You would work where they told you, marry who they picked for you, and if you were very lucky you would have lots of children of your own that you could sell off. If you didn’t like it, they killed you. Maybe they just beat you a little. It’s what I like to call the good old days. At least when some little monster is running around the grocery store, climbing up the shelves, and screaming at the top of his lungs.

Nowadays, the word “love” is overused and meaningless. People will say I love these shoes, I love that book, or I love that new taco place; but what they really mean is I appreciate these shoes, I enjoyed that book, or I recommend that new taco place. We have become so inundated with all kinds of people who want our time and money, the language, the medium of culture, is beginning to suffer. Our modern world is so full of marketing hyperbole that anything less than the best will never do. But love is the reason for living, not the fodder of advertising agencies. Letting them pervert the language like that is like asking the kids to mind the candy store.

Let’s leave “love” for that special feeling between two people, whether they be family, lovers, or just good friends.

Also, don’t forget to feed the cats.

Are you an artist or designer? Would like a chance to make fifty bucks and have your art on the cover of a book. Check out my Cover Art Contest for details on how to enter.

(Images are courtesy of Ambro, Stoonn & Willem Siers at FreeDigitalPhotos.net and are used under standard license.)

About Sean Sandulak

Crazed recluse and sociophobe who has taken up writing after failing at everything else. Send pizza.