I was aware that we were seventeen
and how on earth
could it all be so hazily perfect,
but also how couldn’t it?

I wanted to raise chickens
with you. I wanted to drive
a poemmobile cross-country just because.
In these early moments:

We’re Shakespeare’s lovers
standing up on Bambi’s legs,
and always will be.

I knew we'd met too early, sometimes.
If we were twenty-something and living in Bohemia
when we collided at a jazz-bar
drinking dusky whiskey.
Then life would follow.
I was scared that because we both needed something
to latch onto so badly, there was delusion
and we were too caught up in ourselves to see it;
that my first love would flit away
like everyone else’s.

We were sitting cross-legged
on the precipice of youth,
you whispering in my ear
that you hate haikus,
when I decided that my first love

was realer than any image
of white washed sheets
and yellow sunlit apartments
that this fresh faced
heart could concoct.  

Eight months later
when you broke it
I realized I was right
about everything

because the thing about
Shakespeare’s lovers
is that they die young
and Bambi’s legs
collapse with knobby knees
but the things they held up
while they could
were so ******* beautiful
that nobody really cared.

And we were so ******* beautiful,
how could I
possibly
have expected
that to
last.