I’m not supposed to write about love in 2024 
Because there are more pressing matters in
The world
Heartbreak is okay sometimes because 
It has a certain violence that
Feels like war
And a casualty is worth a thousand words
Working class people want to kill the rich and 
It’s even worse to be poor and lonely because
Restaurants are expensive and 
Where will your children grow up and
How do you install an internet monitoring app
And how do you hold the attention of a partner
When there are titties on the timeline
& yet,
we can’t help but
Watch normal people (with
Ten thousand Instagram followers) fall
In and out of love in windowless pods with
Strangers as if it is reality depicted in a 
Forty hour work week of flirting and 
Drinking wine and spilling the tea to 
Strangers in the same social caste who
Just get you, because
What else is there to do when
You have no phone and nothing but 
Encapsulated material reality
Manipulated by producers 
To focus on?
We swipe left and right and read
And never reply 
And wonder why nobody will 
Ever be good enough
We trust the algorithm to
Select for us, oblivious to
The game of addiction being
Played on our minds
Pawns can’t go backwards 
But never ask why
And so we eat up this grown-up 
Version of a Disney princess movie
As if to inject hope directly
I don’t blame Americans for
Experimenting with arranged marriage
Because the statistics sell a good alternative
And Tinder serial killers exist
So Father Harrison will surely vet and screen
For safer repressed people (with
Enough money to buy that house)
If time is money, then why wouldn’t a
Sane proletarian try to speedrun the
Dating process?
Everything you need to know can be 
*naturally* dumped on a first date
Baggage is heavy, but
Jesus gives us strength
It’s easy to fall in love on vacation
Where money isn’t real
And when minds grow numb it
Is easy to become obsessed with 
A person who was produced by a 
Decade long set of research 
Lab rats can’t see outside the maze
All of the love stories are written 
For us and the world can’t feed itself
So feed the mind just one more season 
And never, ever write a poem