The Second Act

Loneliness and the ensuing turmoil

It should have been easy to say no. To recognize the growing look in your face. It was young love. It was a desire to know and be known. It was exactly what I had feared.

I played a new game.

I let you feel what I had felt. I was 19 and calloused.

To think that I could sing of love and beauty and treat you in a manner that conveyed neither is still unfathomable to me.

Instead of telling you how I felt, instead of doing any one of a thousand things to improve the situation, I let it ride.

It was then I learned how quickly love can turn to hate. The look in your eyes expecting me to make your whole, knowing I did more to destroy you than I ever could to fix you.

We still speak with the distance of once intimate strangers. I realize that any real part I could have played in you life was lost long ago. I try to make up for the damage by being what I never was to you in those years past. A friend