In The Past

I met her by chance
And fell in love too many years ago
She was older
I was younger
She was a flower
I was a bud
She was mature
I was a puppy
She was a grown-up
I was on the rise
She loved me for awhile
I loved her for always
She had many responsibilities
I had no cares but her
She drove a car
I had my bike

And then she ended it, with a soft and shy sentence and hard closing of her door
Leaving me lost and shocked and with a knife through my heart
You hear songs about ‘heartache’ on the radio
Say in a country song
And they were only words then
But now daggers to my heart.

My friends were kind with words of support
But no, ‘time does not heal all things’
And ‘other girls are not the same’
And ‘there are not a lot of fish in the sea’
At least not like her

I never went back and knocked on her door
To understand why or fight for my cause
To this day I don’t know why I never did
Perhaps I feared the knife’s second thrust.

It has been years and decades since that time
There have been other women
There is a wife
There are children
There is another life and love
It probably was for the best
Perhaps her maturity told her it would not work
Despite my intense and youthful dreams

And I wonder what happened to her in life
And wonder if I should have gone back to find out the painful ‘why’
And when I am in the poet’s * “ emotions recollected in tranquility”
I hurt again and love her just the same.

And still I wonder if another poet** is correct in saying
“It is better to have loved and lost
Than to have never loved at all.”

12/08/2015

Author's Note: * Wordsworth ** Tennyson

Posted on 12/09/2015
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