Back when things were darker still,

when the loneliness put me through the tortures of hell,

I emerged from that sickness of the mind

still everso slightly damaged and ill

but as long as one’s happy, who needs to be well,

and to be so takes effort and time.

From days of toil and grief I would come

the back way up the close to my home.

And, while those were such lonely times,

a young girl of fourteen in the close –

I know her grandfather, but not well;

he knows my name and always says “Hello”,

I don’t know his but often stop to chat –

anyway, I stopped using the backdoor

as much as I could

for at least two years and maybe four.

If I had to pass her by

I would stare straight ahead

with an oblivious eye

that didn’t react to the things she said.

I would have been early thirties then.

A few years passed before I saw her again,

she was a young woman now.

But, a habit had formed that wouldn’t go

and now

if I pass her in the on the pavement

or see her here or there

I still feel the burning into me of her eyes

and it’s not like I even can’t look at her

it’s just that I avoid doing so.

Because,

youth is cruel

it makes you do things you wouldn’t do now

I’d like her to think that I just didn’t see

just didn’t hear

just didn’t know,

because your childhood crushes are sacred

and should only be known by you

so that no one else knows the pain

and the loneliness you’ve been through.

I don’t know what age she is now,

but I thought she would have been over it by now.

Thursday, in the co-op

looking at the shelves,

I sensed a presence beside me.

Something that for years I was tortured by myself,

I think I can recognise in someone else

and I am unintentionally cruel –

I could talk to her.

I would say:

This world does things to us.

Let them wash over you

and laugh at the things it does, but

it will not requite our desires

and we must let them die and be as the dead are

because, the loneliness will put you through the tortures of hell.

You either be happy or be mentally well

so I suggest you should lose your mind.

This world has nothing for me or you –

in another world, fine! –

but its future is not for us.

Your love does not belong here,

and neither does mine.