today is the twenty-third birthday
of the first boy I fell for.
I can remember his seventeenth
like it was yesterday.
A sweet goodnight kiss
in a bitter winter's cold,
on the porch of my parent's house
after a high school formal dance.
In my gut then I knew
he would be the one to wreck me,
ruin my future's self-esteem,
but in my fifteen year's naivety
I ignored my brain
until he was gone and through.