To Carla

We all see a vision of Ever After
Like the Grail, a call to greatness
Which, when taken in selfish portions,
Can drown and devour our every
Best intentions.

Long after lost pictures, tattered letters,
Broken tokens and fading smiles
I learn from Greg's extremist romance
That giving you my soul was not enough,
It was too much.

And nights I cried for shattered hearts,
These feable, failing, empty arms,
Eyes buried and swollen voice rattling madly.
I prayed for a return of my missing love
With forgotten faith.

10/98

Tom's Notes:

Where do I start? Written on the eve of her marriage to some other, nameless fellow, and written a year and a half after the fact, this poem puts to light two of the most profound losses in my life. One resulting from the other.

Carla was my fiance for a time. Engagement was broken off after a very difficult religious dilema which my memory has clouded and confused. For more than a year the shock of the event caused me to forget, entirely, why it was that we were having the disagreement that lead to the break-up. I credited her decision to things like youth, nerves, stress, and mocked her statement that it was "God's will", mostly because I had decided long ago that "God's will" was quite the opposite, and then long since pushed God aside for the immense happiness I found in the love of a woman. It wasn't until I heard a similar tale of the broken engagement of Greg Corinth, and the incredible highs and lows he lived through, that I saw a striking resemblance in my own life, and drew from his mistakes and misdirected devotion, my own fatal flaw. Mistaken priorities.

We all have our idols: fame, money, power, happiness, romance. It's just so hard, really, to think of love as one of them.


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