You always see movies about love.
How it makes your smile so large it covers your eyes
yet makes you so upset
and so angry that your
great aunt's vase breaks, shattered,
laying next to the wall in pieces.
That one she gave you for those purple flowers
that you got from that boy, years ago,
with the coal eyes
whom you never saw again.

In those movies you always see people searching
through empty milk containers and spoiled
mac and cheese that you never ate,
through sticky pop cans and beer bottles,
through unread magazines,
through plastic silverware and paper plates that you ate off of
a couple days ago.
Then you realize that thing you threw away was gone,
taken by the garbage man
just last week.

About a month later, you're looking in the junk drawer
for scissors
to cut the loose string off of your shirt
when it's there.
You never threw it away after all,

that love you were always looking for,
just like in the movies.