My First Time

You penetrated my body and knocked on the door to my soul.

Everything I thought I knew flew away with one thrust of trust.

You were let in, my everything.

What I felt with you was like a revelation.

It was like a prophesy carved in stone.

I didn’t want any barriers between us, just your flesh to my own.

I wanted us as close as we could get,

As close as our love already brought us.

When you mated our bodies, my mind was on forever.

I remembered your hand holding mine as we walked by the shore line.

I thought of your whispered declarations of love when the world came too close.

You made me a woman when I still fantasized like a child.

Still had dreams created in a Hollywood film set or an Atlanta music studio.

Following the eruption of completion came the crush of reality,

Weightier than the fall of your body to mine.

The perspiration on my upper lip now has more to do with regret, with sorrow, than with passion.

Though the first time was less than perfect physically,

What I felt in that moment we could never duplicate.

In all the times since, the climax of our passion has been insufficient to replace the enormity of that moment to my emotional self.

You were my everything.

I let you in.

I not only unlocked the door, I gave you a key.

Sometimes I think I gave you the only key.

I am full of emptiness now with this damned reality.

Devoid, a void.

I avoid thinking too deeply about what was and what is no more.

I avoid the thoughts of regret and self flagellation.

Emotionally constipated by how very much you have shit on my hopes and dreams.

You had me thinking…

I had me thinking about forever, when what we had was until.

Until you got bored.

Until the grass became less green or more so on the other side of the fence.

Until…

I’ve been thinking about forever, but you are no longer in that picture.

I want to be sophisticated and thank you for being my first time.

Thank you for the moment of completion I felt when hymen gave way to hope.

However the conflagration of this infatuation to my self, my psyche, my mind’s heart, doesn’t allow for that level of sophistication.

I’m just trying right now to get past reality.

I’ve been going deep into me, figuring out how to change the locks on my being so that you no longer have the key.

Perhaps I’m strong enough to thank you for the lesson you taught me;

Arousal isn’t love and orgasm doesn’t equal eternity.

Boundaries have been set, fences, bulwarks erected to protect my future for my forever.

My next first time will be real.

With my next, my last, every time will be complete because of the love that will blanket us with its beauty.

Until he arrives, I’ll wait patiently and forgive myself for you.

The hope of him makes me smile again.

(c)Pamela Shropshire 2012

Vent To Reinvent

I wish I knew how to be a better friend. It is said, and I believe it that to have friends you must show yourself friendly. I believe that I am friendly most of the time. The problem with being friendly is being oneself. Who I am is difficult. I can get moody when I’m thinking about something of import. I pull into myself and I don’t let people close enough.

I watch people who are friends and I see the way they are with each other. The ease of dialogue, not watching every word, being relaxed. I have people that I have been friends with for years and I am still afraid of them knowing me. Still afraid of the day they actually see me and say, what am I doing with this person?

There are people of reason and wisdom who I can speak with, but my mind can’t seem to focus coherently on what I would say to them. Besides, this seems like so much narcissistic bullshit, except that I truly want to be a better friend. I want to have the type of relationship where I can go to someone and just cry.

Lately I have needed that. My life has altered and reshaped itself. Personally and professionally I have gone through upheavals. I normally go through them alone, but it feels like there’s this buildup of emotional need and no one to go to.

In the now it all feels like I need, but I don’t believe in feelings. I don’t believe in emoting. I believe in rationalizing, logic, wisdom. I believe in working things through mentally instead of emotionally. Feelings clutter up what is with what could be, might be, want to be.

Yet the feelings are still there. The need for a connection that I don’t have to be there. I love my friends. I love the people in my life I call friend and I will do anything for them. The problem is that I don’t share with them. I’m still working personally on how to receive from my friends. I feel like I am getting better, but I’m still a very large way away from being the kind of friend I want to be.

When my mom died, I needed. I just simply needed and I went to a friend who was just there for me. We didn’t talk about pain or loss. We were just together, silly and together. It was what I needed to get through that day to the next. That day, I received and the world didn’t end, so it’s baby steps being taken.

In the meantime, I have who I have always had. Me and God. For now it has to be good enough.