"Variations on the Word Love" by Margaret Atwood

VARIATIONS ON THE WORD LOVE

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

aaargh

*just watched the latest ep of Life* You guys, seriously, the beginning of the season was a little weak, but yesterday's episode was-- Jeez. Amazing, that's what!

If Life doesn't get renewed for a third season, I will cry. :(

...I don't think sleeping in the computer lab will be comfortable

So, uh, someone shot someone else off-campus, and the entire campus is on lock-down and has been since eight o'clock this evening.

...But, uh, the problem is that it's now almost midnight and we're still on lock-down, and I am in the computer lab.

...I really don't want to sleep in the computer lab, you guys. Seriously. I want to sleep in my own bed. :( Here's hoping they catch the guy soon.

ETA: The lock-down is still in effect, but I managed to get back to my dorm and am safe and sound in my room. Now I'm going to bed. The dorm itself is locked, as is the door to my room, so don't worry about me. :)