Death To Cupid by Marc Darnell

Love came and fucked it up again,

a storm while I was standing still,

and left me face-down in the sand.

It's the toying I can't stand--

you won't fall in love, yes you will;

then you do and it fucks you up again.

To curb the pain I count to ten,

but pain always gets its fill

and leaves me face-down in the sand

sucking ash and a cheap brand

of beer, and three unpaid bills

since love came and fucked it up again.

And I ask myself, how long has it been

since this curse came in for the kill,

leaving me face-down in the sand

in another uncharted, unlit land

with a slumped spine ascending that hill?

Love came and fucked it up again

and left me face-down in the sand.

Marc Darnell is an online tutor and custodian in Omaha NE, and has also been a phlebotomist, hotel supervisor, busboy, editorial assistant, farmhand, devout recluse, and incurable brooder.  He received his MFA from the University of Iowa, and has published poems in The Lyric, Rue Scribe, Verse, Skidrow Penthouse, Shot Glass Journal, The HyperTexts, Candelabrum, The Road Not Taken, Aries, Ship of Fools, Open Minds Quarterly, The Fib Review, Verse-Virtual, Blue Unicorn, Ragazine, The Literary Nest, The Pangolin Review, and elsewhere.