Love is a dunghill... and I am but a cock that climbs upon it to crow

Ah, amour.

Hackneyed, overwrought, typical love. I think Hemingway may have been right about it from the quote in the title.

People "love" everything. I'm sick of hearing the word used over and over again to connote trivial matters.

"Oh, I love that show!"
"Don't you love that song?"

Kindly go fuck yourselves.

Don't mistake my spite as hatred of love--the modern, consumerist "love" raises my bile by blinding the eyes of the unaware. It hides behind Hallmark cards and candy hearts and dozens upon dozens of red roses. Three cheers for the iGeneration.

"I love you."

There's some thin ice. People pass those words around like a lit joint. The problem is, they don't know if a hit will make the next person high.

"Let's make love."

There's an interesting phrase. It's glaringly obvious that sex is not the same as love, but love without sex is inconsummate and sex without love will make a shell of you.

"What is love?"

If you said "Baby, don't hurt me no more," you should stop listening to one-hit wonders. What is the unpackaged form of love? The cynic in me says it's nothing but two animals with their fangs in eachother's throats--too afraid to let go for fear that the other will bleed to death. The optimist in me says I'll know it when it hits me. The realist has trouble finding gray areas.

And so, I am brought back to Hemingway. Approaching love, like the dunghill, is dirty business. The best I can do is make some use of it; I'll climb atop it to make myself known and heard to the one that hears me best.

How do you know how do use something if you don't know what it is? I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's the same reason we don't let toddlers handle firearms.