first love

I gave you years –
I waited in years –
I gave you my love
Washing its font with tears.

I spoke no ill
As I bore your lies –
I waited and waited and waited –
For a last good bye –

You kept me hanging –
I loved you still –
I have your side –
And I always will –

You ignored my pain
Because you wove it well –
And that you lied –

No one could tell.

Now as decades pass
I can say without regret,
That I have remembered
What you chose to forget.

Yet what creates pain –
At this our very end –
I’ve called you my first love –
You called me a dear friend –

You Couldn’t Tell

When we were young and when we loved,
I believed it all to be true,
And maybe you believed it, too.

When you left and when you promised,
Fidelity was not deceit,
Spanning oceans seemed no great feat.

But society had concerns,
Ambition had its own power,
Love became matter of past’s hour.

If I could say something to you,
Following two and twenty years,
I still could not without these tears.

I’m too old to call this weakness,
I guess I loved and much too well,
It was just tragic you couldn’t tell.