Im just saying

I don't know what it is about Valentine's Day, but something about the day makes me feel melancholy.  And I have no reason to be.  Maybe it's just a sugar-crash from all the artificial sweetness.  And while I have nothing against the holiday, and in fact love the idea of taking a day to acknowledge how special someone is to you, I guess I doubt the sincerety of most people on 02/14/whatever.  Do they really mean what they paid $2 to have a card so eloquently state, or are they acting out of obligation?  If it's the former, then sign me up!  But in a show of solidarity for my friends who do have reasons to be less than enthused, and in protest of all the red and pink sweetness that is being shoved down  our throats, today's post is a anti-ttribute to Valentine's Day.  Finally my penchant for sad poems and songs is useful.  (Hey, something about pop culture sadness just rings more true than the happy stuff.)  Take that Hallmark!

First we will set the mood with some sad/intense music.  It helps if you understand hindi.  (English speakers, see the bottom of the post.) 

Now that your ears are saturated with sad music, time to saturate your soul. This is one of my favorite poems:

Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda
translated by W.S. Merwin
     
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

And now for a list of couples who love has screwed (thank you wikipedia):

Pyramus and Thisbe
Lancelot and Guinevere
Tristan and Isolde
Devdas and Paro (Parvati) in Devdas
Layla and Majnun
Heer and Ranjha
Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler
Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala
Tony and Maria in the musical West Side Story
Paris of Troy and Helen of Sparta
Dipti and Captain Jack Sparrow
 

Reasons Why I Love You Email Fwd, and Response (and you know what, if you are my true friend, you know that these fwds just annoy me.  Well, actually if you really are my friend, that is probably why you are sending them to me, jerk.  So this is more for my acquaintances.  Please stop fwding me this drivel.  It just makes me annoyed, and think mean thoughts.  See below.)

1.  I can be myself when I am with you. --> This is a lie.  If anyone ever told you this, and yet you have never seen them desperately angry with you and/or heard a body emission, this is a lie.
2.  Your idea of romance is dimlights, softmusic, and just the two of us. --> Sweet thought, until you run out of things to say to each other.  My guess is half of the "action" people get is just because they ran out of things to say and needed a way to fill up the silence.
3.  Because you make me feel like,like, like I have never felt before.  --> As will explosive diarehia.
4.  I can tell you anything, and you won't be shocked. --> Or even if you are, he/shewill keep to himself because they don't want to rock the boat and upset you, possibly causing the dissolution of the relationship, and ending up alone.  So very alone.  And cold.
5.  Your undying faith is what keeps the flame out of love alive --> This line is so icky it renders me speechless.  I have nothing to say in response, except for maybe Ew.
6.  You and me together, we can make magic. --> Sure, but you and David Blane can make magic, and millions!
7.  We're a perfect match. --> Unless we are like the 50%+ of other couples who thought they were perfect, got married, and then divorced because guess what, You weren't the perfect couple!  
8.  Thinking of you, fills me with a wonderful feeling. --> As does chocolate.  And salty cheese.  And they are so much more manageable.
9.  Everytime I look at you, my heart misses a beat.  --> I've checked WebMD and this is definitely not a good thing.  
10. Love is, what you mean to me - and you mean everything. --> So by the transitive property, love means everything?  Awwww... sick.
11. You are my theme for a dream --> Ok anything that makes me laugh out loud gets to stay in, without comment.
12. I have had the time of my life and I owe it all to you. --> Isn't this an 80s song?
13. Your love for me is a natural anti-depressant. --> Like most drugs though, soon you will build a tolerance and need more and more of this.  Then he/she will find your neediness to be repellant, and then you will be alone.  And on real anti-depressants.  
14. Your love has helped me to rediscover myself. --> And then you realized there was a reason you had forgotten about yourself.  You don't like yourself.  See #13.
15. I like your small gestures that speak volumes about how much you care. --> And I suppose this is good because there is a serious lack of large gestures.