First Love Lost
First love lost, and the rest turns to dust
New rose blooms from first rose’s rust
Discolored, stained by old deceit,
First love’s leaves grow to strangle the seed
The arrogant flower, humbled, resigns itself to the anonymity of weeds
To mourn the proud hour of its vain stand
Against the lies of the wise and the father’s advice
The moment when it stared defiantly at the sun
With uncompromising faith
In something beyond biology
Afterwards, what can possibly remain the same?
Just as sugar dulls the taste
So joy does the heart, and hurt does the pain
Who among us wouldn’t give everything
To feel any of it, again?
To see your face again as I remember it
That perfect way you looked away
Whenever you laughed
To feel that again, that innocence,
To be so consumed…so consumed
I would trade my many mirrored days
And forfeit the labored insistence
Of tomorrow’s return
But, you’ve been the woman you’ve been for so long now
Laying your days down behind you like blankets
Trying to stay warm
And have suffered enough nights without magic
To have earned the right to forget
In the spring of our senses
In the time of our witness
Hand in hand amongst the wonder
That aches like a mirror without reflection
We found a world together
That was lost the moment we discovered it
And, to that green moment of uncertain exhileration
We, withered, our whole lives yearn to return
Scratching at dark corners
Like miners whose lamps have burned out
Exhausting ourselves in pursuit
Of a place to rest
But the effort is already
Doomed to be fruitless
For no future love
Can ever be so rootless
As to not be fertilized
By our first love’s lies
Perhaps a little laughter, after all,
Is the best that we can hope to find
So, with that, I bid you goodbye
And return to the sorry company
Of my new love’s mediocrity
