The first time we kissed

I remember those endless, youth-blessed days

like they were great bursts of color splashed against the sun.

I recall the taste of your lips, how your body would lay

in shared bedrooms of love before we came undone.

Your touch leveled lesser men, and I was broken in half

tormented by a depth of emotion I could not articulate.

I celebrate you in arcs of time, please do not laugh;

these memories possess a value I cannot estimate.


I remember those reckless, grief-stricken, suicidal nights

where we were first spiraling out of control.

I recall every anonymous lover, the ceaseless fights,

the dangerous jockeying between two star-crossed souls.

You left many men behind you, surely there are more to come,

and they will fail to appease you with their hearts.

I explain you in these verses, you left me stunned,

soon to be stripped of all dignity and ripped apart.


Old lover, you do not recognize me now, I am lost

in a previous life you do your best to disavow.

I assure you that I have paid the heaviest cost

for those days when I wanted to live but did not know how.

I silence you now and commit you to the gulf of ages

where old passions recede into shadow and mist.

And you will live forever here in my place of pages,

old before my time, remembering the first time we kissed