To my Valentine

For a long time I was in love with you,
I found your ideas warm and cosy.
They where a brilliant idea that gave young lovers an excuse to spoil each other for all the right reasons.
It gave married people memories of what it was like in the beginning.
Valentines day for me meant I'd fit into a society that spread love only for a day.
Street vendors stocked up on roses and poppies.
Stores went red and white and cupid was re-employed for the month.
Chocolate wrappers filled Jozi streets. Men were on their best behaviour for that
month and young ladies filled beauty salons more than usual, the sisters couldn't wait
to go home to dress up and smell good.
Valentines day meant that the whole world is united in love, fantasies,kisses and hearts. Bubbles of happiness and clouds of romance could be seen in the air from miles away.

I'm older now and can't stand the V word. The world takes Godly principles like love and creates a way of generating a profit from it.
To me its another attempt at increasing sales after the December holidays because the sales from Easter eggs are a bit too far away.
Store owners have bills and staff to pay. Money waits for no man. I am in love with love no doubt, its the putting a price, shape and colour to it that gets me lost.
I lose myself in thoughts about how and when did I need to start telling my partner I love them on this day more than any other.
It has me upset that if I didn't receive a gift on the 14th of the second month of the year, I find myself feeling sad and unloved. I find that I'm upset at the world for creating this money-driven view of love I'm not a part of coz I'm single. That because I didn't get a plastic rose or bruklux for chocolate I'm unloved.
The love I have cannot be bought.
Its always there and costs me nothing at all.