one day I’ll run through the mall
shouting Fuck You Saint Valentine
patron saint of the beautiful, the privileged
you’re a tease, a fiction
spreading hope, packaged passion
Fuck You Hallmark cards
perpetuating a myth of receptive possibilities
promoting expectations
one phrase at a time
Fuck You Harlequin Romances
happy endings all tidied up
measured passion
not the snarls of our lives
Fuck You Hollywood
avalanche of romantic comedies
soundtracks swollen with strings
when all some of us hear is the croak
of Tom Waits at two in the morning
Fuck You Saint Valentine
glossing over the childrens’ labour
sweetly boxed
Fuck You mall wanderlings
I’m tired of happy passion
animated Barbie and Ken dolls
buying underwear for each other
Saint Rita!
patron saint of loneliness
of forgotten causes
a saint for the chronically alone
a saint without P.R.
So Fuck You Saint Valentine
I’m over your sweet promises
I’ll plead my case to Saint Rita
on her feast day I’ll take myself out to lunch
and I won’t be disappointed
David Trudel © 2014
