Whenever she heard girls speaking of love
She thought they were dreaming.
Whenever she heard the word love come out of male mouths
She was sure they were lying.
She looked at girls and boys trespassing into adult bodies
Realising that love was a brand that was sold to them without their understanding.
Everything was called love.
Almost immediately.
They would feel in extremes.
Their youth imprisoned them.
She heard it so often coming out of everybody’s mouths
That it became hollow to her, robbed of significance.
And she concluded that it wasn’t worth
Pursuing it.
But she kept evoking it in her head,
Separating it from reality.
Is love surreal?
She had never seen it.
She saw how it played its tricks.
Maybe it showed up masked and fooled everyone.
Maybe it sent others into the battle to have a little fun
And not be taken so seriously all the time.
Maybe love itself felt utterly deserted and lonely, overused, emptied
Of its true meaning, ejected from unknowledgeable hearts.
“Dame (Alice) Ellen Terry” by Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937)
Croque-Melpomene 