the word LOVE in my diary, to remind myself
of the underpinning of all the things I do.
I craft the letters with a ruler,
taking great pains to ensure that everything
is smooth, straight, in order. I decorate the word
with a border and I colour it all in, in a way
I haven’t done since primary school.
I really want this word to stand out – LOVE.
The unassailable axiom; the uncaused cause;
that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
Until I realise that the letters aren’t quite even.
Some of the lines are thicker than others
and if you squint a bit you can see
a slight smudge on the page. The letter O
seems sort of squished, and although the word
is still, recognisably, LOVE, it looks somewhat
misformed, somehow. And so I carry now
this buckled LOVE everywhere I go –
in my diary, tucked tight in my rucksack –
and this imperfection is part of everything I do,
a bold, flawed LOVE on the pages of my days.