“I love you,” she said
With trailing eyes.
I tried to kiss her,
But she was already gone.
I gaze to memories afar--
O, heart, I beg do not sink!
I remember that smile,
Those dark eyes, and oh, that wink!
They all set my mind astray
And somehow my words are slurred.
My eyes call with wanting thoughts
And my heart is set a-sturred.
The sunlight shines on her face;
In that one special way.
She made me forget the world;
My troubles drifted away.
* * * * * * * * * *
This is not an old rerun, just a well-worn trail. Tragedy has always held my hand and my heart belonged to no one. Harsh as it may seem, it is the truth.......
My heart was set away
I had hidden it so well
From the girlish smiles in the day
And the nights they tried to sell
For I had fallen in love once before
And was ledt tearful by a lonely shore
Heartbreak had always been mine
Just as those well-worn fears
And even the most joyous rhyme
Could not rid me of such tears
I vowed to build a wall so high
That love would never again be nigh
But what I saw that cold morning
Made me want to live once more
For the gorgeous smile she was adorning
Was unlike any I’d seen before
And in her eyes, a ahppiness so true
It was love once more -- my tattered dream anew.
* * * * * * * * * *
I stood in the cold hallways following a midday practice. My worn figure was a mess. As I rounded the corner, my heart fell into the shadows, for standing there was an angel. Sure, I’d seen her before, but never looking as pretty as she did that afternoon. Her cheerful eyes were aglow as an emerald sea. Her long, dark strands lay limp on her shoulders. The beauity of her countenance would have set the wonders of a white rose jealous. Her figure was adorable and her walk caught many-an-eye. But through all of these wonders, it was her smile...yes, it was that smile that caught this boy’s eye.
Kimberly was her name; I could never forget it. Since first I laid eyes on her, never had I seen anything but that bright and beautiful smile. You see, my life was in shambles; each sunrise was not abeginning, but just another endless day of sorrow. I had hit the lowest depths of depression and all I wanted was happiness - a joy I saw in Kim’s gorgeous face.
“Hi,” a soft voice echoed through my ears. My thoughts were stopped abrupt. My wandering stare darted upwards. Kim was standing in front of me, that smile oh so close. My heart raced and my mind was a million thoughts.
“Uh, hi, Kim,” I muttered, my knees growing weak from her beauty.
“Just get out of practice?” she asked in an enthusiastic voice.
“Yes,” I answered softly.
“You look a little tired,” she said in a concerned tone that warmed my heart. “Are you going to be up to doing anything after the game tonight?”
Her smile had me in a trance. I took me a moment to answer, “Well, um, I haven’t planned anything yet. Why?”
“Because,” she said, resting her hand on my shoulder. “I’ll wait for you by your car after you get out of the lockerrroom tonight and I’m gonna buy you dinner.”
My heart jumped into my throat. “Oh, OK.” Before I could even think of what to say, Kim was already on her way, and as my eyes watched her gait, I felt then just how fast my heart was beating.
You couldn’t imagine the feeling in my heart that night when I walked out of the lockerroom after having been yelled at for nearly half-an-hour, and there she was, standing by my car in her cheerleading uniform with that smile sending a warm glow to my heart. She ran over to me the second she saw me, threw her arms around my neck, and, to my surprise, pressed her lips to my cheek. “What’s wrong?” she asked in a tender tone, trying to cheer me up.
“We lost,” I pleaded.
“You did fine!” she called out. “I’m still proud of you!”
Actually, I had played the worst game of my life, but suddenly, I didn’t feel so bad. Kim had a way of doing things like that. She would take something that would have normally ruined my day and turned it into something to smile about. Kim always made me smile, made me laugh, and she turned my life around. When I looked back on life, I no longer saw a barren field charred by love’s painful fires, but pure white roses sprouting from the blackened ash.
* * * * * * * * * *
Six months soon passed, and Kim and I sent mostly all of our time together. Over those months, I saw who Kim really was; the person under the beauty and that smile. The little things she said and did always made me realize how special Kim reallly was. The carefree, childish manner she acted in when I was down always managed to fill my heart with joy. She was tender and caring at just the right moments. The one thing that I will never forget -- my God, I hear it in my mind a thousand times each day -- is the way she would smile that one grgeous smile I fell in love with and say to her friends, “He says he’s gonna marry me.”
Sure, we had our fallouts once in a while, but Kim always took the bad things and made them into good things. Kim and I usually went out n Friday nights, but one particular Friday night, some guys from the team were going to a warehouse party and invited me to go with them. I told Kim that I had something to do with my parents so she wouldn’t worry about me. She always worried when I went out with a bunch of friends because we always ended up in trouble somehow. Well, to make a long story short, at the party, we got into a huge fight with some guys from another school over something stupid, and even though we won, we were still pretty banged up.
Later that night, catering to my black eye and bruised ribs, my friends and I pulled into the school parking lot. My heart fell and my stomach rose into my throat as I stepped out of the car and saw Kim and her friends. I tried to hide myself in the darkness, but Kimsaw my car and ran up to me. “I don’t believe you!” she hollered, pushing my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed quietly, and in pain. “I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
“Why’d you into a fight thise time?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” I pleaded. “We just did.” I was waiting for Kim to turn and walk away.
“I can’t believe you got into a fight without me there to protect you,” she laughed. I sharply looked up. Kim put her hands on my shoulders and shook me a little. “Don’t take chances like that,” she said as tears began to fill her eyes. “You could get killed and I couldn’t handle that. you mean more to me than anything else in this world. I love you.”
I held Kim in my arms. For the first time, I realized how much she really did care for me. For the first time in all my life, I saw a future through the fog. My life actually had meaning to someone, and that someone was the girl lI loved with all of my heart.
Warm summer sun blooming flowers;
Echoing laughter bright’ning my life.
As love to the petals of a rose,
She picked me up and lever let me down.
When I needed it most,
She took me in her arms and smiled.
Loving words could never tell her;
I care fo her more than life.
Saddened darkness was once my world,
A dream anew, she has let me live.
Over the years I shall never forget
The one girl in this world
Who gave me something to life for.
* * * * * * * * * *
The months flew by like hours, as deeper and deeper Kim and I fell in love. Two years quickly passed and we found ourselves at the end of our senior year in high school, looking forward to a great future...a future we had planned to share with each other forever...well, until that night.......
The cold evening air pierced through my frame as the frigid February rain fell endlessly from the sky. The lights blurred through the windshield and the road was slick under the tires. My hands were gripped tightly on the steering wheel, as the fog began to roll in. I’d driven in the rain countless times before, but never had I seen it falling with such a down-pour.
“It’s getting pretty bad,” I said. “Maybe we should go home and wait for it to clear up a little.”
Kim leaned over and rested her head softly on my shoulder. “It’s not that bad,” she said. “My mom said that my grandmother might not live through the night and I want to see her before...”
I nodded, not wanting to take my eyes off the road that I could barely see. I wanted to stop, nut I knew Kim’s grandmother had been very ill and I knew she wanted to see her before she passed away. It would have meant so much to both of them and I wasn’t about to take that away.
“Well,” Kim said, resting her hand over mine on the wheel and moving her seat belt under her arm so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable as she leaned over to me, “we could stop somewhere and see if it clears up some.”
“No,” I said, “you should see her. Your parents will worry if we don’t get to the hospital soon. Honey, please put your seat belt back on.”
Kim looked at me and smiled. “I love the way you are over-protective with me. I will in a minute, just let me be close to you a second.”
I felt Kim’s hand slowly caress my cheek as she moved her head forward and touched her lips to my cheek, just as she did the first night. Just as I felt her kiss, I caught a glimpse of the headlights jumping the divider in the middle of the road and landing right in front of me, the light blinding me. My mind raced, my heart skipped a beat. I downshifted the gears, the winding noise screaming through the night air. I tried to turn out of the way...oh, I tried harder than I had ever tried at anything in my life. I try to think -- what hours I spend, day after day, trying to find something else I could have done! My mind tells me there was nothing, but my heart keeps searching for the impossible.
I can’t remember exactly how I felt as the car crumbled in front of me and the jolt threw my body forward, my seatbelt digging so harshly into my flesh. As soon as we stopped sliding on the slick road and I shook the cloudiness from my head, I looked to Kim, quickly reaching to grab her arm. She was slumped over towards the door, and as I wrapped my hand around her arm to pull her over to me, I felt the shards of glass cutting into my fingers. Despite the pain, I pulled her back through the broken side widow and wrapped my arms around her. The blood...the blood was everywhere -- I can’t shake it from my mind! My hands shook, as I felt my heart pounding rapidly in my chest. I let Kim go, kicked open my door and quickly ran to the other side of the car. “No1” I remember yelling “no” over and over again as the rain drenched my painful frame. I couldn’t get the door open; I pulled with a strength I’d never felt before, and finally, I pried it loose. I reached into the tattered car and took Kim into my arms. I carried over to the side of the road, setting her down in the grass, waiting for her to open her eyes. I can’t recall ever wanting to see those beautiful emerald eyes as much as my tear-filled vision did at that moment. I knelt over her, caressing her cheek, trying to keep the rain off her face.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. They pierced right through me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, the tears falling from my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
I don’t know how, but she managed a bit of a smile. “No,” she whispered, “it’s not your fault.” She struggled to raise her hand to touch my face. “I love you,” she said with trailing eyes as her arm slid down to the ground. I tried to kiss her, but she was already gone. I leaned over, and taking her in my arms, kissed those beautiful lips one last time as the cold echoing of sirens drowned my tears. “I love you, too,” I whispered.
* * * * * * * * * *
I keep talking of memories, and you’ll have to excuse me, but they’re all I have left. She came into my life with such a whirlwind that nothing in this world could ever take her place. Yes, she is gone now and I stand before you, a tattered soul gazing into a future with absent eyes. “He’s gonna marry me,” he’d always say to her friends with that gorgeous smile and longing eyes, and now.......now, my future was only a cloud of memories in the pain of a love lost young.
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