you're on my mind all the time
you're in my heart at the start of the day
i lean forward and back and can't shake you loose
i'm a two ton truck rolling downhill without brakes

you said you weren't so sure you wanted to be involved
you said you had just ended a four year relationship
and weren't sure you wanted to rush into anything
all the stuff from your last apartment was still
in your car parked outside of my apartment which
i told you was your apartment too as long as you wanted.

i'd learned a certain detachment from all the strippers i'd been hanging out with the past couple of years. it was mostly a professional relationship with them, they'd dance and i'd pay them and we were both quite happy. we got along. we were like friends except we never saw each other in the real world. which was o.k. with both of us usually. i'd think i was in love with one of them from time to time but would never say so and would never scare them away.

so i was trying to play it cool around you. like. i was open and my emotions were under control and if you wanted to stay i was very happy to have you stay and if you wanted to leave you were free to leave and i wouldn't freak out or be a basket case about it.

after a few months of that i saw you kissing one of my friends. i didn't want to lose you so i asked you to marry me and you said o.k. we got married in europe and i think the relationship was basically over the very next day. it just all went downhill from there. the romantic illusions popped like a soap bubble and reality became harshly focused and clear.

well. the rest is history. . .
it didn't last too long.
and it sure was painful when you left
with that other guy
just exactly like you'd left that other guy for me.
it was painful as hell.
ten years later and it is still painful as hell.
but was it love?
did i ever love you?
did you ever love me?
i really don't know.
but i wish you well.
and i want to ask you to release me now.
let me go. get out of my memory and imagination
and shame and failure. get out of my anger and my pain.
get out of my blues and reds and new beginnings.
i need to love again. i need something real. somehow.
if i ever learn what that is.

[submitted 05/16/03]