First Love

I met you in a place I love

In the sunny days of June.

You talked to me, and I to you.

We got on fairly well.

I still remember how I felt

When you came to me one day

And parked your chair right beside mine,

When there were a dozen others who

Gladly would have been with you.

You smiled at me, prayed with me,

Held my hand as you talked to God,

Asking Him to help me.

If only you knew

That you would be my stumbling stone.

The feel of sweat against leather.

Icy lake water in my lungs.

There were the sunflower yellow school buses

And your stupid metal crutches. 

A cripple you are, and you crippled my soul.

Too many years after you

Was I swept into this world

On the crisp September winds.

The distance between us is greater 

Than the flight from the mountains

To the stars.

Which one of us was heaven bound 

While the other roamed the plains,

Consumed by youthful fire?

I am, to you, a child

And you, to me, a dream

That I wish I could forget.

You are

My first love,

But you really shouldn’t be.

You filled my head with prophecy,

And you carved your memory into my soul

With your laughter, and your charity,

And your word-stuffed speech bubbles,

Which you twisted into balloon animals

With your warm and gentle hands.

A cripple you are, but surely not blind.

Can’t you see what you’ve done to me?

Why did it have to be me?

God, why did it have to be him?

Why do I see him in my dreams, and run from him

While my heart says, “Stay,”

And my spirit, “Go faster”?