I always knew that someday

I would be a lover.

I could feel it,

beating in my blood,

throbbing in my bone.

It was another myth of my youth,

a dream born in the breasts of starlets

whose glow lit up

my empty adolescent heaven

with a hard clarity

that left me

with wet lips

and wet nights.

I could feel it, too,

in the music of my youth,

in beats and melodies and lyrics

that jerked me up

with unsuspected hope.

I felt its ache in the tenors of the time.

Maryanne,

you were my first love,

and how I could have loved you.

I dreamed of you at night,

and my dreams of starlets’ breasts

got mixed up with you.

I called to you

with the snaredrum beats of my heart,

sharp, insistent, driving.

I wrote to you in the ink of my tears,

long poems of longing.

I sang to you

in the shouting of my silence,

sad lyrics of loneliness.

I believed in love, then,

relied on it to conquer all,

trusted it to come,

was certain it was meant to be.

I knew you were the one for me.

But your catechism of caring

was different.

Yet, I still believed,

still heard the music,

still held to the myths,

still hoped someday I would be a lover.