When I was seventeen I fell madly in love with my boyfriend. We dated for over a year, and like many young loves, made grand plans about our future together. We were going to move to Florida, where he’d been accepted to law school, and we were going to live happily ever after. The summer before he was to start law school, and I was to start college, we broke up. Or rather, I broke up with him. I realized that at eighteen I was too young to be in such a serious relationship and I wasn’t ready to follow him blindly. I moved on with my life and he moved on with his. With the exception of getting in touch briefly a couple of years after that, we haven’t spoken since.
I haven’t thought about him much over the years but recently he popped into my dream and so he’s been on my mind. I know where he lives and that’s he’s a successful attorney but I don’t know anything about his life. And that’s fine, I don’t need to know about his life, I hope he’s happy and doing well and I’m certain he wishes the same for me. But since he’s been on my mind lately I decided to harness those thoughts and memories and write a couple of poems. Here’s what I’ve started with.
Stumble
The bartender shared your name,
it’s unique so when he introduced himself
I nearly kissed him.
It’s been half a lifetime since we said goodbye
and I wonder if your lips still speak French
and if your hands still are callused.
If we met now would we once again
stumble into love?
New Year’s Eve
At midnight
we drank champagne,
ate caviar and fois gras,
our first New Year’s Eve together.
My first time consuming
such exotic food,
my first time kissing someone
at the stroke of midnight.
It was a time we couldn’t imagine a future
that didn’t include US in big, bold letters.
We raised our flutes,
toasted ourselves and our love,
kissed and laughed when
the bubbles tickled our noses.
It was our last New Year’s Eve together,
six months later I would break your heart.
You would leave for law school a month
earlier than planned.
I would never see you again.
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