The "hypocritical" book

I am preparing my next poetry collection to submit to a publisher. This next collection is a collection of love poems. But...I am not in love with anyone right now. Well, not in REAL life, anyway. I'm not involved with anyone. I was chatting with my best friend about this, and I told him I felt "almost hypocritical" bringing out a collection of love poems when I'm not even in a relationship.

This may have something to do with my many failed attempts to recently write a song. It's a love song. Well, it's actually about...intimate love. The physical kind. And, I can't get it right! I want to put it into my collection (and not into the "songbook" collection), but after two drafts so far, I just can't get it "right." I have used everything I can think of to get this song written to satisfaction. Well, short of darkening the room, lighting candles and putting on some lingerie just so I can get in the "mood" for this song, all on a day my daughter is not home. But, I don't think I'd go that far... not unless I continue to find NO success in making this song what I want it to be.

I wrote this collection many years ago. I was in love then. Many of the poems were written for different loves. Some of my recent ones are for that "fantasy love" I have! So I'm not concerned about that. My concern is bringing out such a book on such a subject when....that subject doesn't exist in my real life. It just feels so...strange. Normally, I have some kind of "real life" relationship to a book I'm writing. But in this case, the only one I have is that it is something I once felt... and maybe, just maybe, something I'll feel again someday. It's just a really different thing to happen for me. I only hope it won't reflect unfavorably in reviews.