It sucks. You're together, then you're not. Off she goes. She took your heart, threw it against the wall, stomped on it, wore it as a hat, chewed it up like a rabid dog gnawing on a policeman's leg, and spit it out. Then she walks up to you, hands it to you by holding it with her forefinger and thumb as if it were a dead rat, drops what's left of your heart into your palms, and then she walks off with some completely and utterly stupid walking prick who thinks, Oh I see she just did that to him but she won't possibly do it to me cuz with us it's different! Yeah. You keep tellin' yerself that, boy toy.

The worst lost loves though, are the childhood crushes. The Charlie Brown "little red-haired girl" ones. The loves that were so lost you never had them in the first place. And then inevitably, ten, twenty, maybe forty years later you two run into each other and it's entirely awkward. What if she doesn't remember you? What if you've grown so senile you've forgotten her? Somehow you both get through the coyness and the shyness and learn that back then you both did have a thing for each other and gee why didn't ya ever do anything about it? Neither of you know, really. You think back and come up with excuses, but it doesn't matter. It's too late. Lost opportunity. Lost chances. Lost love.

Well it's not too late, is it? You're both here now. You're two mature adults. So maybe you manage to get a hotel room or do the your place or mine? thing. Then you get it on and the result is almost always anticlimactic, cuz a person can never outperform the fantasy that the other person invented ten, twenty or even forty years ago. It's like Howard the Duck trying to fly faster than Superman.

Or worse, one of you is taken. In the interum of the decades of lost loveness, one of you got tired of waiting, and settled for someone who wasn't as good as the fantasy of the lost lover, but was (and this is important) THERE WHEN IT GOT COLD. So there's now this other person in the picture who wasn't there 20 or 30 years ago and if he got involved, gee whiz this might get complicated. So you begin contemplating all the damned if you do damned if you don't scenarios. And ultimately you realize what I've told you from the beginning: that lost love really sucks.

...I wouldn't change a nanosecond though. Nope. Not a breath. Uhm... I mean you shouldn't, IF this ever happens to you... *ahem*

Sand in a Glass

...to set it right
We met that night
With summer wind blowing
Over dunes at dusk...
Just when the stars start showing...

Strong in her spirit
On the sand she lit
She imparted her secrets
We shared the joy shared between two
Our love there we did beget

Her wind tossed hair
Our love alone to share
Time, wicked time, grew fleet wings
We mingled together
...and she told me things

Many ages passed
Doomed, our love wouldn't last
In rolled the grey, cruel sea
Covered us both and ran back to its bed
And took my love away from me

You loved him. Then you lost him. Well, what can I say? How do you move on from someone who you've built up into your head as being some sort of being beyond earth. What do you do when you always saw them as being rather ethreal and beautiful?

There's not much you can do, not really. You think they're amazing. You melt when they brush past you, touch you, look at you. Your pulse races every time you hear their voice or you're anticipating their arrival in the room.

But they don't know how you feel so you never tell them. And then they leave for the army and you're alone knowing you'll never see them again. You know it makes it harder because you don't know what could have been. You don't know if that day he brought you a chair or when he smiled at you... or even when he told you he thought you understood him meant anything. You don't know if there could have been a future for you both. And that's what makes it harder.

The more he's away the more you love him and pine after him. You need him in your life and now no one compares to him.

It's funny because you're thinking of him now and your eyes start to water just that little bit. You were already feeling ill but it's now something more than just that. Sickness? No, not where it should be. It's in your heart.

You're thinking of how his hair looked, about those deep brown eyes that you loved to stare into and mentally pour your heart out. You're thinking of how you felt when he was supporting your head in a training exercise for a patient with a neck injury. You remember how your heart was pounding so fast when he took your pulse and you were so terrified he'd figure it out. You remember watching him walk about with that air of confidence. You remember his laugh, that beautiful smile which made every day seem okay. You remember how you felt when he spoke of his new girlfriend and that look he gave you when he first mentioned her. That look that said he may have understood just then. The eureka moment. Your face must have given it away for you almost cried there and then.

And now you tell yourself that it's going to be okay. It's okay that you keep thinking you see him when you don't. It's okay still to hurt like hell every time you think of him. It's okay to wish that he was here with you. But it's not okay that he doesn't know how you feel. If you knew then what you know now you would have shouted it out from the rooftops. But you didn't and you still don't. It's not like you haven't tried to find him but you probably haven't tried as hard as you should have. It's been a year since he left and nothing's changed about how you feel. You met him three years ago in March and your feelings have just gotten stronger and stronger. You just hope some day you'll meet again and be able to start again. That fate may play a kind hand in your future.

So, might I just say, in case you didn't know. Marc, by the way, I love you.

A MEMORY

A peaceful time,
At rest in me.
A piece of mind,
That’s best to be
Adrift at sea
Within my
thoughts,
A lonesome time,
A gift of sorts.
Alas,
Though freed

I cannot see,
The things I need,
To do and be.
For
love has left,
I’m all but gone,
A silent husk,
While life goes on.
And nothing,

But a
memory.

A picture left,
To set them free,
A love so strong,
A
heart that soars.
A time that’s come,
And left my shores.
For you I pine
In sleep at night.
I scream aloud
In dreadful fright.
Distress that burns.
To you I turn.
A distant light
For which I yearn,
And you alone
Can calm my heart,
To mend the hurt
Of
lovers, torn apart.

Don Henley in a Bar

I walked in from the dusty mountain parking lot. The wind made the summer air forget it was supposed to be warm. Don Henley was alone at the bar. I remember thinking, “….wow, Don Henley alone in this place, this is the guy who writes all the songs about beautiful western settings and love and forgiveness….is this where he sits and comes up with this stuff?…” I nodded hello as I sat down, ordered a beer, and, figuring this was my chance to learn about inspiration, asked, “What is it that makes us remember people long after they should be forgotten?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You really want to hear? I was just throwing it out there, being that you’re Don Henley and all. I was wondering if you’d have an answer.” I spun my bottle lazily on the ancient wooden surface of the bar.
We remember people because they haven’t left us.
I took my chance, “But why does thinking about something that once made me so happy now bring me such reminiscence? Why, if the person in my thoughts has never left me? Why can’t we simply move on? These feelings seem to sum up all of the sadness that passes between people.”
“Of course they do. You’re a seer, you’re able to capture the experiences that pass between people, and documenting them is your job. When you die, another will hold it. It is an honorable job.”
I nodded wordlessly and took a long drink from the beer.

I went to the window and looked out at the high desert. There was nothing here really, nothing for me, just a road in and a road out. I knew that I’d never be able to put my thoughts into words, especially in this wasteland of blowing dirt and brown buildings. I went to an open table and sat by myself. For reasons too mysterious for me to fathom, there was a Chicago Cubs poster on the wall. It featured Budweiser beer, it was curled at the edges.

I stared at the emerald greengrass of left field in the picture (was Wrigley Field really that green in real life?) and listened to the cinema of thoughts that played for me. I wondered what God had wrought when He made life so sad. There was I girl I knew from Chicago. I think I liked her and loved her because she was the kind of girl that sees way into you and likes what she sees. I thought of myself drifting disinterestedly through relationships. Attractive intelligent women that held nothing for me. They were interested in me, but I not in them. I think I was captivated by the way the Chicago girl reached out when she never reaches out. I saw her in that picture, over two thousand miles from her home, over the pool table. I wondered where she was as I sat and thought about our long lost days. It wasn’t important whether she thought of me. She was the only girl in the past ten years of my life who made me realize that there were greater things to pursue than my primitive basic unfulfillments. I wanted her to know that I’ll always love her. Not the needy grasping of all modern lovers, but instead the simple emotion of wanting to be with someone.

I looked away from the poster, it broke the spell. The wind outside ticky-tacked the California dust against the dirty window. Ghosts. I thought of her even though she wasn’t there. She wouldn’t like it if she knew I was writing this. Or thinking about her. Outside, “tick-tack…..”, was she my ghost? Or was she here? Scolding me for wasting my precious hours with such remembrances? I smirked through the filmy glass: “hey! Cheers! Here’s to ya, brainless. You made me so mad at you that yeah, I once really did hate you. But I can’t stay mad at you. You taught me so much about myself that, believe it or not, I actually feel like I need to thank you. Thanks for coming to me this way, for giving me the best of all gifts, something to write about. You know that you never really knew me, right? You only saw hints of me. But I want you to know that I’m happy. I want you to know that I do think about you often, happy thoughts. But man, am I ever tired of walking away down Marlborough Street for the ‘last time’. I always think of you the day you forged this statement in my mind- ‘let me go away to him, let me miss you and come back to you’. If my actions are confusing to you, it’s because I found an appropriate ending in that statement. If you’re ever back I want you to be really back. Until then, I’ll miss you, time after time, I’ll kiss you, through the bars of this rhyme.

“Do you come out here to get ideas for your songs?” I asked.
“Mostly I just listen to what comes to me. The rest kinda takes care of itself, y’know?”
I understood. In the wake of all that had just come to me, I understood completely.

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