Only angels should have wings.

We'd exchange gifts common to Puppy Love
both of us having met as sixteen-year-old virgins
with unexplored areas of the heart and loins:
homemade cards, popular music on disc, oral favors
and the occasional bad verse (framed, of course).
It was back before I learned that there's nothing
more gratifying than breaking up just before
Christmas, or even better, her birthday
to avoid having to give her presents
'her' being the frustrating female sex in general.

It was an innocent time.
I didn't even beat it on the Sabbath back then
and I still almost believed in one.
All of that changed when the cherries were popped.

The fights became more harsh.
At seventeen we sounded like bad parodies
of our parents and soap opera actors
all because of the introduction of intercourse
and the complications that came along with it.
I broke it off three times but always returned out of guilt
until July 14th in the Two-thousand and Second
year of "our" Lord when...well, just "when"...

Our first love had come and gone
as easily as that first condom
that I blew up like a balloon
and then lost in her house somewhere
after letting it go and watching it zip around
the two of us searching for hours afterwards.

My conscience was unusually clear.
I told her not
to follow me to college, dammit.
Maybe that cold-heartedness was the beginning
of the modus operandi that followed.
Again, another story I'd rather not tell...

My mother temporarily disowned me
for leaving one for another.
She made me go live with my father
for two weeks while she cooled down
and hated the new girl for the first few months
on principle alone. Never doubt the wrath
of a Puerto Rican woman, or the ability
of a Puerto Rican man to bring it out.

During this period her anguish was doubled
due to her own motherly need to pry.
I was away at school and she was "cleaning my room"
when she must have lifted my mattress for some reason
and found one of those cute little gifts previously mentioned.
It was never brought to my attention, mind you;
I only know this because it was gone when I came home.
The calendar my Ex had made me marked with all of the dates
relevant to our high school romance was no longer there.
Our first date, our first kiss, our first time having sex
all documented on oversized sheets of paper
held together with pink ribbon in one corner
for my mother to read at her leisure.

The cat was out of the bag.
I was on the loose
and my Ex was not the only girl
with a broken heart.
It was official.
The war was on.

If only I'd kept the list of casualties lower
I might not feel so gosh-darn crummy
but ya can't take it with you
and I think it was a Beatle who said
something about the love you take
being equal to the love you make
in the end, and that might be out of context
but nevertheless it would be the basis
of my defense though I know it wouldn't
hold up in court.

There are some people we'll owe
an explanation to until the day we die
and the most humane thing to do
is to leave it that way.

Never is a promise, alright...



Currently reading:
"Rimbaud Complete: The Poetry and Prose of Arthur Rimbaud."