While in high school, I fell in love with a boy. I can honestly say it was my first love. He was tall, dark, and handsome (at least to me). He was a musician and lived a physically rich but socially meager life under the control of his mother. I adored him.
I wrote a poem for him. I'm not sure if I ever gave it to him. However, I stuck it in a notebook of poems that found its way, years later, to my attic. I recently found the box and was relieved to discover my musings had survived several attic purges.
As a aspiring writer, I thought I might rework it. You know, take the eighteen-year-old out of it and insert some experience. Somewhere in my editing, I realized that I cannot change the poem. I tried to polish the grammar and punctuation. Then I bowed to the Muse and allowed my voice to remain that of an eighteen-year-old.
Finding this poem and its emotions I realized that in spite of the time that goes by, the fundamental things still apply.
I wondered if there was some way of reaching you.
Yours was not one of the classic cases that
appear in huge, dusty volumes.
Full of symptoms and cures for the affliction.
You have the same feelings, hopes and fears I do,
only slightly variegated so they might mold themselves
to fit and become the individual you are.
There were times when I gave up.
The times I saw no bright,
shining hope ahead.
Only darkness.
Then I would; and still do remember
a smile you once threw casually in
my direction.
Or just a few meaningless words that refuse to leave me.
Then my faith is again renewed in the
human race,
Of which you are the predominant member.
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