There was a wood by my house you and I used to meet at.

We would wait until the warmth of the glowing sun had gone

So that you, my first love,

Could wrap your strong, loving, embracing arms around my delicate, tiny body

And I could feel the tingling cordiality of your clement lips on mine.

The butterflies in my stomach danced around one another as if they were joyous,

Celebrating the unity of our empressed lips.

That October night, no less and no more than four years to this very day

You lit a fire inside of me that still burns, and will continue to burn

And will forever fuel the hunger inside my heart

All of which you catalyzed.

I stood in those woods seventeen months later and

Instead of being met by the loving warm lips and indulging in the comforting embrace

I had become accustomed to for so long

The salty stream of my tears was met by the painful stinging

And cruelest wind of the gloomy fall

The saddness that engulfed my mind and body

Tortured my brain so that I could no longer see

And the unbearable grief that fell over me and overrode my sanity wrapped ever so tightly around my chest

So that I could no longer breathe the air around me

All of these sensations so unimaginably insufferable,

Yet none of which comparable to the intolerable pain I felt in my heart

I did not stand in those woods again

And I was not loved by you again.

I drove past the woods a few weeks ago.

There were landscapers and steamrollers and dump trucks

Where two lovers once fell in love with one another while gazing at the stars.

The blazing inferno that once incenerated all sadness in my heart was gone.

Gone like the woods by my house

And like the woods,

The love of my life is gone too.

S.T.