Love Poem: I Turn the Bar Codes Away From Me
Rhys Owens Avatar
Written by: Rhys Owens

I Turn the Bar Codes Away From Me

When we love life so much
we hate to live,
she said,
nothing. And I was not about:
—to give in.

You drink death from a bottle
filled with nothing,
"Like" ashes that never left an ember.
And we had classes... on the river...
she said.
No need to wait...

I remember lotsa larfs; with you
too;
in pyramids deeper than a close
but not an older heart,
could swallow,
such a golden year that only two can render.

So I turn away from the costs;
and am sickened by the impersonal
bills paid by broken hearts made
by forgotten papers.

With you, she said, there's yet an interest. 
Sharpened by knives that don't see each other everyday.

Put aside a few good years, and you will have
percentages based on broken seed encumbered.
Like the last word in a will of faith....
Left to pay the rent of sundered responsibility.

That was not love, if that's the taste of it,
she said, and read a poem of the 1920s.
We were left for more real things 
than the truest love, betrayed, in its finest memories 
could even pay a visit.