because it needs me

Words fall

Like rain down foggy windows.

There is something

gentle

in the silence.

What can’t I live without?

What can’t I live without?

It is a question without an answer –

With a thousand answers –

And yet every time it comes back

To four simple letters

That fall

Like rain down foggy windows.

                                                                  L

                                o

                                                                                                                   v

                                                                                                                                                e

love like summer.

like sunlight and water on skin;

The love that sings

And shouts and laughs;

The love that swells

And softens and grows

Like flowers in the hearts of people in the crowd.

Does it sound contrived

So say I do not know how to live without

The love that springs like

Water in the desert?

Maybe to you I sound

Like those children of

An era past –

All you need is love,

Love is all you need –

Or maybe to you I sound

Like an idealist

Who knows nothing of the world.

You say love

like it is a prayer

Like it is sacred

Like the more you say it the less it means.

I wear love

On my sleeves –

I hand it out like flyers on street corners;

Pass it through my teeth and roll it on my tongue

And breathe it into the open air.

It does not mean

What it means in romance movies;

Love

Means freedom;

Means justice;

Means hope.

Some believe that love was only important

To the generation who wove flowers into braided hair

And spoke of peace in crowded coffee shops.

What they don’t know

Is we are that generation.

We weave flowers into braided hair

And speak of peace in crowded coffee shops.

I belong to this messy, fucked up generation

I live my life in moments;

and when I look into the future

I am looking for

One thing:

Love.

We have lived –

In this messy, fucked up generation –

For one thing:

Love.

We measured our life

In love and cups of coffee.

You say we know nothing.

What do we know

If not love?

I need love

Because it needs me.

It must be carried

Into the future on the shoulders

Of my messy, fucked up generation

And we will carry it with pride.

You words fall

Like rain down foggy windows.

And I refuse to live

In this silence.