Pride

Thinking, hurting, crying, burning
Inside.
Too strong, proud to show my emotions, churning.
Pride
The love killer; together no more, fears.
Pain,
Alone in my sorrow-tears
Stain
The pillow in the night.
Why?
Liquid eyes blur the sight.
Cry
For my lost love.
Lost
The freedom of the soaring dove.
Cost
Of the loss of affection.
Madness
At the sight of her, perfection.
Sadness
At missing the toss of her hair.
Silken
Strands flying in the wind, so fair.
Hidden
The thinking, hurting, crying, burning
Inside.
Strong, proud now to show emotions, churning.
Pride.


It wasn't long after writing this that I abandonded the rhyme style of poetry - it started to seem (and still does) very forced. Some of the lines in this you can tell where I was straining to find rhymes.

I wrote this sitting in a very comfortable maroon spinning rocking chair in my high school best friends' house right after finding out my girlfriend had spent the last year sleeping with whoever caught her fancy - except me...

As I was typing this in I was thinking about how much of a fool I must have been to talk about the loss of her love, affection, etc when it is obvious to the present me that the past me never had any of those things from her.

Hindsight.

About two years after this, after she moved back to Georgia and returned to Idaho, I started courting her again. She seemed to have changed alot and answered all of my questions (I am assuming) honestly about her cheating. Somewhere along those lines I got involved with my first ex-wife and forgot all about her until running into her in the mall several months later. She was quite excited to see me - until I told her I was getting married. She got this strange closed look, spun on her heels, and walked away. I found out about a week later she moved back (again) to Georgia, and found out a year after that that she was married within a month or two.

I haven't heard from her since that day at the mall in 1993.

Years later, my second ex-wife and I were visiting family in Idaho when I found out that the night before she and I started dating, my high school best friend (and my second ex-wife's brother) had slept with her. Now, this hurt a lot. A lot more than it should have. Not so much that he slept with my girlfriend, because she wasn't at the time, but that he didn't say anything. He knew her intimately the entire time we were dating, and said nothing. That is what hurt the most.