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The Trouble with a Love Poem

The muse has heard it all before.

Ever since that prehistoric man told the woman of his fancy, “Looking at you makes me want to say something where all the words end with the same sound,” then dragged her off to his cave to show her his etchings, many people’s first poetic efforts have been expressions of fondness and desire.

And no matter how bad the poem is, when the feeling is reciprocated, the response is reinforcing. “You wrote me a POEM?! Oh, it’s BEAUTIFUL! That’s so SWEET!” Et cetera, et cetera, with kisses.

At this point, the love poem is perfect. It communicated the desired message, and it had the desired effect. But then, with the beloved’s ecstatic acclamations ringing in his ears, our fledgling poet takes the next logical step in his literary career: he posts the poem on his social media.

Back in the day, when we had to walk 5 miles uphill through the snow to use the internet, young lovers only inflicted such embarrassments on their friends. “Uh, yeah, Zeke. That’s, like, awesome, dude. You wrote a pome. Um, so you wanna go skate?” But Zeke is too besotted to skate; he’s got to go suck face with Bertha, or if she’s busy, go home and write her another pome.

Let’s see. He already told her in poem number 1 that:
a) She’s beautiful,
b) He loves her deeply and truly,
c) He is going to keep on loving her forever,
d) All he wants to do is be with her,
e)…