love always

the other night i had a dream about the first person i ever truly loved. his name was donny and he was my best friend's big brother. i was a sophmore and he was a senior and he was the drum major and one beautiful fall afternoon when i saw him marching at half-time i got a sick feeling when i realized how in love i was, and how i may never have him. he was very tall, platinum blond hair and blue eyes, a beautiful laugh and a deep bass voice. i did finally get my chance, and we were together for a little while, and suddenly he was gone, never calling me again. it hurt for so many years.

in the dream he was back and i didn't understand why after all these years, why now do you wish to love me, especially since i know now that you are gay? but there is a little shadow of love for him that i cherish still and always will. can't help it.

i wonder where love goes when we are done with it. for me, it doesn't goe anywhere, it stays tucked in a corner, but it never leaves. all the bad things that may infect or break it - those things fade and scar over, but the love never does, it stays little and small and safe, somewhere deep inside my heart.

a couple of weeks ago i sent a note to someone who was my best friend for many years. we so loved each other, but she is gone, too and i don't know why -- and with heart surgery on the horizon, i wanted to know. so i told her i missed her and how much i loved her and always had and always will and was hoping to make amends, but instead she wrote back saying she was sure the surgery would go well and by the way she has adopted 2 cats. where did her love for me go? i will never know. it seems to have left her heart, and i wonder how that can be when we felt it so strongly for so longly back then.

as you know, i think a lot about my heart these days, not only about how it is beating and what will happen when something warm and burning is poked into the center of it to heal the crazy beats and anxious rhythms. but i also have been examining every corner of it, and visiting all the loves that are small and quiet, forever asleep but not forgotten. and then i think about all the other loves, the big ones - center stage, bright and embracing, the ones that will never grow smaller, only stronger.

and i hope with all of that love in there, that dr. gorman can find the room he needs for that catheter to burn my wires. hope he doesn't burn anything he oughtn't.

turns out it is pretty crowded in there.