The Dark side of Valentine's Day

Often with Valentine's Day we chose to celebrate the holiday by focusing on the prettier side of Love. But what about Love's ugly stepsisters: lust, scorn and loathing? Here are some poems to celebrate the dark underbelly of Love: The Breakup

Hymn to a Broken Marriage

Dear Nessa - Now that our marriage is over
I would like you to know that, if I could put back the clock Fifteen years to the cold March day of our wedding, I would wed you again and, if that marriage also broke, I would wed you yet again and, if it a third time broke, Wed you again, and again, and again, and again, and again: If you would have me which, of course, you would not. For, even you - in spite of your patience and yuor innocence (Strange characteristics in an age such as our own) - Even you require to shake off the addiction of romantic love And seek, instead, the herbal remedy of a sane affection In which are mixed in profuse and fair proportion Loverliness, brotherliness, fatherliness: A sane man could not espouse a more faithful friend than you.

--Paul Durcan

SAY YOU LOVE ME

What happened earlier I'm not sure of. Of course he was drunk, but often he was. His face looked like a ham on a hook above

me -I was pinned to the chair because
he'd hunkered over me with arms like jaws
pried open by the chair arms. "Do you love

me?" he began to sob. "Say you love me!"
I held out. I was probably fifteen.
What had happened? Had my mother- had she

said or done something? Or had he just been
drinking too long after work? "He'll get mean,"
my sister hissed, "just tell him." I brought my knee

up to kick him, but was too scared. Nothing
could have got the words out of me then. Rage
shut me up, yet "DO YOU?" was beginning

to peel, as of live layers of skin, age
from age from age from him until he gazed
through hysteria as a wet baby thing

repeating, "Do you love me? Say you do,"
in baby chokes, only loud, for they came
from a man. There wouldn't be a rescue

from my mother, still at work. The same
choking sobs said, "Love me, love me," and my game
was breaking down because I couldn't do

anything, not escape into my own
refusal, I won't, I won't, not fantasize
a kind, rich father, not fill the narrowed zone,

empty except for confusion until the size
of my fear ballooned as I saw his eyes,
blurred, taurean- my sister screamed- unknown,

unknown to me, a voice rose and levelled
off, "I love you," I said. "Say 'I love you,
Dad!'" "I love you, Dad," I whispered, levelled

by defeat into a cardboard image, untrue,
unbending. I was surprised I could move
as I did to get up, but he stayed, burled

onto the chair- my monstrous fear- she screamed,
my sister, "Dad, the phone! Go answer it!"
The phone wasn't ringing, yet he seemed

to move toward it, and I ran. He had a fit-
"It's not ringing!"- but I was at the edge of it
as he collapsed into the chair and blamed

both of us at a distance. No, the phone
was not ringing. There was no world out there,
so there we remained, completely alone.

--Molly Peacock

Hatred

I shall hate you
Like a dart of singing steel
Shot through still air
At even-tide,
Or solemnly
As pines are sober
When they stand etched
Against the sky.
Hating you shall be a game
Played with cool hands
And slim fingers.
Your heart will yearn
For the lonely splendor
Of the pine tree
While rekindled fires
In my eyes
Shall wound you like swift arrows.
Memory will lay its hands
Upon your breast
And you will understand
My hatred.

--Gwendolyn Bennett