Reflection on my first love.

Radiant was what he called me that mid-morning in April,

with shadowy lines across my face from the sun through my blinds,

and he told me how he was born in the wrong generation,

should have been a Beat like Kerouac,

I mean he worshipped On the Road like a fucking bible,

but I doubt he believed in god, rather he

was like George Orwell in thinking that religion is

the opiate of the people, not that he had a problem with drugs –

he wanted to try all of them and keep a

glamorously decorated cigar box stocked with cigarettes,

a couple of joints, some acid –

which he reckoned everyone should do, at least once –

cocaine and even heroin, though I’m convinced

he’d never be able to go through with

injecting the needle deep into his veins,

just like he couldn’t tell me he loved me until

he was so blackout drunk it was all he could do after

finding the love letter I wrote to him but had

kept hidden in my shirt pocket because deep down I knew

mine was an unreciprocated love,

a love that kept the best of me deeply hidden

from my beloved who told me lies and

led me on with every passionate, fiery embrace,

my first love who wouldn’t text me back because

he was probably too busy telling some other girl

how gorgeous she was, under the mystic light of the stars

where we shared our first kiss.