Love Rots

Love, my friends, is overrated.
Be compassionate, have empathy instead.
And not always regard yourself
as Tristan or Isolde,
the Lochinvar who came
to overturn the bridal feast.

Kindness,
when done with earnestness
and not as trickery,
is what disperses clouds
to give the withered crops fresh light.
Where love can be selfish, needful,
a passion rushing forth
as much to solder cracks
in one's own soul.

Love pressed the pillow down
on Desdemona's face,
or so Othello might have claimed.
Love made Iago drip the hate
that burned its way from ear to brain
and spurned Othello's higher self.
And then, at last, young Desdemona...
love resigned her soul to death,
confined its grace to her last breath.

And why did Cain smash Abel's head?
For love of God,
for which he'd make his brother dead.

Love rots like apples in the dirt.
Pick up what's left
and make chutney.