February 9, 2011
Too late to send us a poem? You can still send your loved one a message in our Valentine Messages Prize Draw!
Anti-Valentine's Poetry Winner:
Marriage of Convenience
We fancied ourselves better than the others
No heroes, no knights, no forceful passionate
Bursts of emotion
Clinging like shackles and rattling with the unpredictable
Scatter of Lotto balls
No need of heartache, of weeping eyes and heaving hearts
No need of the messy entanglement
That comes with love or commitment
And yet.
…no excitement or euphoria
No delightful nervousness, no jitters
Nothing but the pedantic safety of our self-constructed prison
Never falling in love…
True; never getting hurt
Never knowing the bitterness of a weeping, violent wound.
But still.
…No breakfast in bed, when we wake up late
Or calling at night, to make up for a fight.
No fulsome joy, no memorising each others faces
No map of our secret lovers’ places
You said to me, what is this worth
If in actuality,
I sacrifice this untravelled life
For quotidian security?
Then I would never know the marriage of true minds
The tingles after a first kiss
You paused. You said,
I no longer think of the heartache we’d evade
But the precious moments we would miss.
Congratulations to Amelia!