To never fall in love again…

you tell me

Four years removed from uttering those promises

At a time when i was already questioning

Exactly which side that coin would fall on.

 

To be truly young again.

At a time when I did not count minutes

And just allowed time to flow

Like a lazy river carrying my makeshift raft

Down the twisting rapids of youth.

A time when the prospect of love

Any love

Was more exciting and magical

Than coughing these wordy promises

Into a face of someone

Who was deemed good enough.

 

To never again walk empty streets

Clinging to some plebian hope

I’d meet another lost soul

Where I had not the previous hundred times.

 

Once, when walking through the door at a frat party,

Some girl drew a pair of balls on my hand

And it made all the sense in the world.

Maybe that was her on the elevator

Short hair and glasses

And nothing else is remembered.

Maybe it could be her -- if I wanted.

 

“Dreams of another life, my boy.”

I can still call myself boy

For no one else will.

Here in this dark chamber

I have not earned my bust of Pallas

But those immortal words haunt me

All the same…