~*~*~*~*~ An Unfinished Poem ~*~*~*~*~

Beauty is more than body,
It is spirit and whole being;
Not with eyes, but with heart
And soul is it seen.

I know a girl very well.;
She's beautiful in every way.
Some may not see this,
But I see deeper than they.

The rare beauty she has,
To the core is it true.
My mind sticks to her
As if it were glue.

She's my last thought
Before sleep shuts my eyes,
And first on my mind,
When I awake and arise.

Her long brunette hair,
Smells sweet, feels tender,
And dances in the wind,
On the sand as we slumber.

Her beautiful brown eyes,
Soft and dark, like her hair,
Reflect her heart and soul
In a smiling, lovely stare.

Her perfection and beauty,
Could not be enhanced.
She's all I ever wanted,
And my heart's romanced.

She's my closest friend;
I can tell her anything.
We are very intimate,
And talk about everything.

Her morals and attitude,
So true and right.
Her compassion, sweet caring,
Her heart so light.

All I feel for her,
Comes straight from my heart.
I love her very much,
And have from the start.

I love her personality,
Bright spirit, intricate mind.
I love everything about her,
Every little thing I find.

Whenever I'm sad or down,
So low I can't see;
Anytime I need her,
She's always there for me.

For five long years now,
Has she been my good friend.
I don't know what I'd do
If that came to an end.

I wouldn't hesitate,
With someone like her,
To spend all of my life,
And be with her forever.

She's the type of woman
I've looked for constantly.
But I still wonder if she's
Really the one for me.

I've pondered this a lot,
Lying awake at night.
What relationship is best?
Would it work? What's right?

It's hard to know what's best,
Amid a lonely illusion,
But I think I have finally
Found the best conclusion.

I'll remain her friend,
Like sister and brother,
But inside I'll still feel
For her like no other.

Keep in mind, I was sixteen.
So it was, that even after the valiant effort of 18 stanzas and several days worth of work, my own words, in the last lines of the poem, betrayed the cause of the poem's purpose, and it remained unfinished. The saddening close of the summer of 1995, and her return to California, brought a new school year (my junior year of highschool), and with it a whole new environment in which to move on. It seemed an absolution that she and I would never be, and although it took me a while to get over the reality of that, I eventually began paying attention to other opportunities around me.

It was toward the end of October, in the same year, that I found my first girlfriend in highschool. We were volleyball teammates and had a mutual loneliness that I didn't realize, at the time, was bringing us together. Christmas would be upon us soon, and with that, another visit back to Nevada from my old crush to see her family. I neither boasted nor concealed the fact that I had a girlfriend to anyone, really. As it turned out, the relationship was not going well in it's early stages anyway, and my old crush, who now meant as little, romantically, as any other of my friends did, didn't find out that I had a girlfriend. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, she had traveled home from her visit that summer, only to quite suddenly begin to like me as more than a friend.

So my old crush arrives in town to visit her family for the two full weeks of Christmas. Things between my girlfriend and I were on the downslope, as I was starting to realize that we were together for the wrong reasons. Outwardly, my girlfriend and I seemed to be happy enough, but were really no more meant for each other than a cat and a dog are. I, of course, brought my girlfriend home to meet ‘the family', which consisted of visiting two separate houses entirely, of course. My girlfriend said hardly a word when meeting everyone, and it became apparent that she didn't care for any of them. They didn't care much for her either. I was quickly starting to convince myself that my girlfriend was not right for me at all, because of this and because of other reasons, ironically at the same time my old crush was visiting her family.

It was another one of those nights, the last night of her visit, as it happened, that my old crush and I had one of our famously long and deep conversations that lasted all night. With great tact and secrecy, she kept her disappointment in my having a girlfriend and her changed feelings toward me totally out of my consciousness. The subject of our conversation touched greatly upon my own dissatisfaction with my current girlfriend, and she quietly listened just as she always did, as I expressed the unhappiness that lay beneath the surface of things between my girlfriend and I. I think it was really the respective lack of input she contributed to the subject that gave me a chance to figure out, through confiding in her, that I was headed nowhere with my girlfriend.

It was upon this note, in the wee morning hours of December 30th, that year, that we decided it was late enough, that we ought to end the conversation and I should go home. I said good-bye, and more out of the lack of motivation I had to face the big problem of dealing with my girlfriend than anything, I mentioned, standing at the door ready to drive home, that the next time I we talked, I would most probably be rid of my girlfriend. I hadn't meant it in any more special a way than a trucker does when he sighs at the long, undesirable trip ahead of him, as he says good-bye to his comrades. It was on the pinnacle of those tiny words that I, quite by accident, caused a great change in the history of my life, having no idea what they meant to my old crush, there in front of me at two o'clock in the morning.

Instead of bidding me the good-bye I expected, she thought twice, and then invited me to stay a little longer. We sat down on the couch, I, completely oblivious to what she was thinking, and she, carefully waging her proposition against the reason of whether it was the right time to tell me. She had concluded that since I was already set, quite of my own volition, to leave her house only to end my relationship with my girlfriend, that it wouldn't be stepping on anyone's toes to let me know she liked me as ‘more than a friend'.

I was completely blown away. Hearing that she liked me as more than a friend, after all these years, was then (and still remains to be) without a doubt the biggest shock of my life. I was dumbfounded and completely at a loss for what I should do. My relationship with my girlfriend was already over, as far as I was concerned, but I had, nonetheless, also moved on from my crush on this girl long ago, poem unfinished or not. There, the girl who had been the object of my idolatry for five entire years of my life, and rejected me the whole time, ironically began to like me just as soon as I'd put her completely behind me; the thought still makes me laugh to think about it.

I found her sentiment, while not expected in the least, not an unpleasant surprise. What a strange world we live in, that a single spark could ignite from dead ashes a flame with potential for becoming what it had been long ago. I had nothing else to do but embrace her and her feelings with happiness, and while my relationship with my girlfriend died it's own death, my old crush was rekindled, and reciprocated back to me for the first time.

It was one of the happiest times I could remember. Both families only encouraged the pair of us when everyone found out. I think that maybe they enjoyed the idea a little too much, for now it was said that everyone had secretly suspected all along that this would be the eventuality of the two of us. We wrote letters and both put a considerate portion of what money we had into talking over the phone. I was halfway through my junior year, turning seventeen, and just starting to really enjoy my life with this newfound match.

In our letters and conversation, we talked of everything that we usually talked about, as well as the new subject of our mutual attraction. We discussed our policies on everything to do with the subject, and looked forward evermore to the coming summer, which she would be spending in Nevada with the family. Everything was going along beautifully.

When I heard the suggestion that the junior prom was coming up and it was time for me to find a date, my mind sought but one logical conclusion. From that point on, our meager families did everything we could to put together the possibility of her flying up to Nevada for my junior prom. By itself, it was an exorbitant proposal, especially for our two families, but it so happened that, with the several months advance notice we had to start setting things up, the plane fair was not out of reach. Chance also had it that April 27th, 1996, the date of my junior prom, happened to fall on the Saturday before both of our schools celebrated Easter vacation. So, being more than worth it for her family to fly her up for a week, rather than just a weekend, the event was set in motion. Soon, her and her sister went shopping and bought a dress, a lovely midnight blue one, which then set the tones for the colors of our date. My mother, a professional florist, made her corsage and my boutonniere to match, and I ordered a tuxedo to match. We could hardly wait.

As the time for the prom neared, dinner reservations were made, tickets were bought, and everything went together perfectly on schedule. She had arranged with her teachers to be absent from school for a day, and the Thursday night before the prom, she got on a plane for Nevada. I awaited her at the airport anxiously with her family. It was with much anticipation that we hugged at the airport and happily greeted each other. Things couldn't have been better.

She and I didn't see much of each other between then and the actual night of the prom. I still had another day of school to attend, there was much preparation to be done still, and she also wanted to see her family while she was up from California.

I remember waxing my sister's little red sports car to a high shine all day that Saturday, so that it would be ready for the prom. I remember driving around in my jeep with the top down, picking up my tux and getting the last of the details of the evening ready with a smiling anticipation of the night to come. Far more than the four months of the event's actual preparation and breathless contemplation were bearing down upon that special date, more so than any other I would ever have. It was planned that I would pick her up in my sister's car on our way to a special dinner, then attend the prom to our leisure, and then return to her house for the ‘carpet picnic' of a movie and dessert after the prom (which would be set up for us). It was finally time for the prom.

One can imagine the grin I couldn't rid my face of, just at the mere idea of the date, much less the actuality of it that approached. I was ready a full half hour before I was scheduled to pick her up next-door and begin our date. When I arrived at her house, there wasn't a family member missing from the entourage that waited with baited breath and loaded cameras to see us off on our date. Pathetic and homely as it may have seemed, nobody wanted to miss such an important event, and, besides, there wasn't much that could have daunted my own happiness at that moment anyway, as I stood at the bottom of the stairs waiting for her to join me.

But the entire date, as it unfolded from there on out, couldn't have been much more of a complete disaster, and I was powerless to keep it from becoming so.

She alighted from the stairs quite dreadfully so in tears, which was pretty strange to me; the automatic seatbelt in my sister's car took the corsage from her dress the moment we got in the car, and there was no replacing it; she hardly spoke a word at dinner, and I was very hard pressed to keep the conversation going by myself; we had to wait in line for nearly a half an hour just to get to the doors at the prom's entrance, during which my attempted hand-holding was far from well-received; when finally inside the dance, she didn't want to dance, didn't want to meet anyone, and wouldn't do much besides sit there silently; after only two consecutive dances to slow songs, I eventually called the night, as far as the prom was concerned, and we left extremely early; all I could feel between us on the ride home was the kind of tension you could cut with a knife; she wanted nothing of the carpet picnic and, curled up in a ball across from me on the floor, quickly fell asleep to the tune of the movie; the pair of earrings I bought her as a gift brought no reaction from her, and no avail to the dwindling situation, for which I would have paid a price a hundred times that of the earrings. Halfway through the movie I decided I'd better leave, and we parted with the last hug I can remember us ever sharing.

I remember walking up her driveway to the car, stopping and staring up at the sky, and wondering what the hell could possibly have gone wrong. I returned to my house much earlier than my family had expected me to that night (something like eleven o'clock), only to lie awake unable to sleep. In fact, I hadn't slept right for about a week, the cause of which having gone from one extreme to the other; from anticipation of the prom's success to the contemplation of it's total and utter failure. I don't know that I've ever been as dejected and disappointed with a date as I was that night, and there was a whole ton of pictures depicting the event on the way. The worst part of it was, I couldn't even begin to guess, much less understand, why the night went so sour; she offered no reason as to what might be the matter, and I had nothing to do but stand by and watch the most important date of my life crash and burn to a crisp before my eyes.

The following week went as one might have expected it to, under the conditions of how the prom went. I tried to be available and friendly, and expressed much concern and curiosity about why our date had completely sucked, but nothing helped in the least. The tension that lingered was such that, although I was around, hardly any time was spent between just the two of us the rest of that week. She was terse and hard and extremely difficult to reach. Upon one final attempt at my understanding why things were apparently nowhere near as peachy as they seemed, she finally expressed her discomfort about our families embracing the pair of us. It had affected her to the point that it had made her feel like the whole match was contrived and pre-ordained for us already. Although I couldn't blame her for feeling that way, it didn't leave many options as to the matter of what was to become of us next. It was never really discussed.

She went back home and left me to my misery and confusion until June. It was planned that her mother was to drive down to Southern California to pick her up and bring her back for the summer. I was still loyal to the idea that things might improve between us, and decided to accompany her mother along the trip. She was so excited to see me that she didn't acknowledge my existence for a full half an hour after we'd arrived. The entire trip was no consolation to the long and drawn out failure that already collected around the expectations of what would become of us.

We only grew further from each other, and it never did get better. These days, she might come into town for a visit and have already left before I'm the wiser; and even if I do happen to run into her while she's here, I resume to be as but a fly on the wall to her.

It's an extremely unfortunate tragedy, if you ask me — one that, while I've learned much from it, has never sat well with me. It's very hard for me to accept that we treat each other like mortal enemies, as though great strife and hate were between us, while what happened between us was really nothing of the sort. The chances of our eventuality together, having been promptly shot down and forgotten with the dawn of that summer, isn't really what troubles me; the fact that she and I will never be isn't what makes this story the tragedy that it is. The tragedy is that the greatest and closest friendship I ever had with anyone is no more, and that it will probably ever will remain destroyed. A great part of my conscious life, that six years of my first love and best friend, are regarded today with no reverence at all. That is the real tragedy, and why I gave up hope long ago for it to ever change.

...The Second Floor...

...April The Nineteenth...

TenSenses@JustFuckingAround.Com

Sign My New Guestbook View My New Guestbook

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page