Lessons of Love

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Fourteen she was, and I just one year more.
Cheeky and pretty but I was still a dreamer.
She said she liked me and took my hand,
large next to hers when she placed them together.

 

My heart till then had been untried,
and likewise my head had not been turned.
It was our first date, a simple walk by the church,
to a quiet and private place she knew.

 

“Good luck to those whose first kiss
is here within the Lychgates.” I heard her say.
My heart was beating, and my hand still holding hers was damp.
I longed to touch her somewhere, anywhere, but I was trembling.

 

She smiled, her lips invited me, but I could not move.
She waited patiently and still she smiled. But I was immobile
frozen like ice hiding the furnace concealed within me.
My lips yearned to feel hers, soft lips on soft lips.

 

But if they met what next? I dared not think,
and neither dare I speak; I didn’t have the words.
All at once the magic seemed to fade. I could not understand
for her smile was gone, and in it’s place a sigh.

 

Off she skipped with laughter loud, and step by step she left me helpless,
saying things that hurt my pride, and I could only wonder.
For while my heart no longer thumped within my chest,
my ardour, now awoken, was unsatisfied, challenged, defeated,

 

She must have known that she was my first love, although I had not said.
And though she was only fourteen, she was far ahead of me,
for I had not yet learned the ways of love and girls. This had been my first
lesson – gentle and cruel – but at the time I felt it was my last.

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