I look in the mirror
And see someone broken
Unmotivated and stuck in the
Past with dreams of what could have been

I see eyes burning with tears
A chest coursing cold from heart to shoulders
An ache so deep
It is like a black hole

I met her in my first class of my first year
My professor seemed like an ***
So I turned to the girl next to me
and told her he seemed like one

Her deep blue eyes looked at me
Her pale skin shifted as she turned slightly
Her lips came to a small smirk
And I fell in love

She was more intelligent than I
Always was, and here was a boy
Who thought himself a man
How wrong she would prove him

She told me she agreed, and that perhaps
I should be careful who I told my opinion to
For she was not a student in the class
but his teaching assistant

I was stunned but always clever
So I played it off well
We didn’t speak
For another week

But when we next did it was perfect
Never a moment dull, or lost
Never and idea or motive that was dropped
We were as long friends were

She invited me to join her for lunch
She always made the first move
But I didn’t know I the fish
And she the shark

She was twenty two and I was not
She was hot and I was not
I was lost and she was not
I was uncertain and she was not

She told me
Over that stained table
She had been focused
On her studies In high school

And in college
Too focused for a relationship
But now just a month into her masters
She realized what she missed

I ask myself in the mirror
If I was lucky
Or if someone else had
Taken that seat

And made the joke I did
Or perhaps not a joke at all
If they would have been
Her fish

So looked at me
And asked
If I was willing to give
Everything I had to her

Her blue eyes which marked her
like no girl I had ever seen
Gave me a look so sharp, so hungry
I was helpless and in love

So I was hers
The *** was incredible
Different from anything I had felt before
As we explored one another

And found what we loved
She was always so hungry
A nymphomaniac my friend called her
And I laughed it off as luck

But it drained the color from the edges
Time would slip as if
The *** was fueled by it
And once again I laughed

For what man can complain of ***?
With a beautiful, wanting woman?
None
I was just being cowardly, unmanly

And so months passed
Wilful ignorance and burned bridges
There was her
And there was I

That was all that mattered.

I look back to what comes next
And scream in anger
Shake in spite, for it was I
Who ruined and saved myself

Clarissa
Oh Clarissa
The blonde girl who I met
One random fall day

Partnered for my history class
We met at the end of the class
And walked outside, discussing
What comes next

And as we figured out
A detail
Of a project
I don’t remember

A cataclysmic coincidence
That shakes me to my core
There was my girl
And that is when she and Clarissa met

I had never seen her eyes
Sharped like a blade on stone
For anyone else
But they were there, and they stared at us

Again I was back at the lunch table
I know it not the same I had met her at
But yet I remember it as such
And once again, there was a shark and fish

I leave, for not even a minute
To refill a drink I should have left empty
And return
To a proposal in whispers

So she and Clarissa lead me back
To the apartment
And the whole way
Are arm in arm giggling

Then there is a blur
I’m there in the room naked
She is on the couch and Clarissa
With sun-touched locks covering her *******

She told me she had no interest in women
And her clothed body
And eager eyes
Told me this wasn’t what I thought

She wanted to watch
Me make love
To a woman I had just met
And didn’t love

For her fun, for her interest
And I did
I would be lying if I didn’t say
I enjoyed it

But in the back of my mind
Blinded by arousal
As I had *** with Clarissa
I wondered if I had what it took

To sell my soul to this woman.

There was Clarissa
Again two days later
In history
Where she asked when she could come over again?

Again?
I slammed my fist on the table
But I didn’t
And told her whenever she pleased

What man wouldn’t jump at this chance
I wasn’t a man
Or brave if I didn’t take
these opportunities

But my heart was bound to her
And some portion of her
Got off on Clarissa and I
And what made her happy, I did

So there I was again
In the blur, my time gone and going
Sometimes I was with her
And others I was with Clarissa

Was this love?
It sure had become it
For me
Just a boy pretending to be a man

And then came winter break
Back home
Far away from her
Displaced

I spent hours realizing
My life had become here
The home I stayed in
Had grown up in, was no longer home

Home was her
Her smell
Her hair
Her laugh from the bedroom

And then came spring
And I was back in her arms
And all was good
For many weeks

Then came back
The girl with sun-touched hair
But being away for so long
I wasn’t ready to share my love

Then went
The girl with sun-touched hair
Her time in my life so brief
And intimate, yet meaningless

She asked me what was wrong
I had done it before
What had
Changed

And so I told her
With a voice that I hadn’t used
One that slept in my mind
Always quiet

I could fulfill her needs
All her desires I could solve
We didn’t need Clarissa
Just her and I

And she called me a child.

I wasn’t a man
I was being selfish
How could I deny more ***
How could someone ever not want more ***

I was eighteen, she twenty three
She was a woman
And despite what I had shown her
I was still a boy

Weeks passed
Like a slow burn
Sometimes the spark was back
Other times we were strangers

And then came the end of spring
And the end of her
As she told me she was moving north
To finish her masters elsewhere

She kissed me one last time
Her lips were always so soft
And fit so well with mine
But I was no longer a piece of the puzzle

And then her door shut
And I walked outside
It was hotter now
As sweat poured down my back

Running
I ran
As I always had
Until I fell

And in that mirror I watch myself
Forehead pressed against the asphalt
Asking what I did wrong
How did I ruin perfection

Though it faded to summer
The world was darker
A colder place
One without purpose

But the time I had lost came back to me
And I cried
For the first time in many years did I actually cry
As a man should cry

Eventually color came back to the edges.

As spent time with my dogs
The younger, always making me laugh
And the older
Reminding me of how short life is

As I spent time with my growing sister
Who is intelligent, beautiful, and funny
I never gave her the respect
And care I should have

As I spent time with my parents
My father, who taught me honor
My other father who taught me to be kind
And my mother, who raised me with more love than a **** up like me could ever ask for

I still look in the mirror
And see those broken eyes
But know that with time
And with love, they will heal

And to Lena
Who loved me as fiercely
As I loved her
Thank you

For shattering me
You made me realize
The mirror can be fixed
So I can see what made me