an objection to mass media's portrayal of love

I decided not to slam how I feel about you,
for fear of tainted words marring the meaning
of these perfect emotions,
the way that an oil spill sinks into the ocean slowly,
poisoning it and congealing over everything like an infected scab,
taking no prisoners
and smothering everything with its grotesque black sheen.

And maybe I’m too scared of the fact that this "love" inside of me,
this "love" that I perceive
is now a word tossed around carelessly and treated like trash
in a society where marriage is a quick fix,
and the ceremony a drive-through,
Where 'I love you' means 'please screw me'
and commitment is gone.

And maybe I’m too afraid that if I said, "I'd do anything for you,"
this reality would warp my words.
in a world where morality has become arbitrary
in the 6 o'clock news and MTV
because there is none,
coz' we're over-censored
and not
all at the same time,
in a world where freedom of speech is the excuse for the inability to think.

And maybe I’m too shy for fear that abstinence means
'I'm a prude'
and sex means
'I'm a whore'
where your love life is a scantron
checked
'Slut
Virgin
or
Invisible'.

And maybe I’m terrified that I'm in
too far
too quick
too deep
in a world that is a parody of a soap opera;
with everything overstated and underplayed at the same time,
turned into statistics.
Religions gone to waste because the new mass is the television set
and our golden calf the media that turns fiction into truth
and entertainment into a news source.

And maybe it’s because in our Brave New World
we're disposable--
blink and be discarded;
dropped like a forgotten childhood toy,
trashed like a styrofoam cup--
disregarded in this world where promises break like frail porcelain dolls
and words are meaningless and forgettable.

But most of all,
I decided not to slam how I feel about you
out of respect for you
because in this world where the media is our soma;
where the telescreen has an audience that isn't watched by Big Brother,
but rather,
chooses to watch him,
I know
somewhere,
somehow,
some ONE
must
know better.

Someone like
you.