Personal Values

About twenty years ago,
I had a girlfriend in LA,
who became my first love,
though not the woman
I have loved the most.

We did all the first love things,
the moist loins thing,
the lying to parents overnight trip thing,
the matching rings thing,
the everlasting devotion thing,
the break up every 6 months
sleep with someone else
get back together again thing,

when I moved to Berkeley for school,
everlasting devotion stayed in LA,
she was 17,
but promised to move up
eighteenth birthday morning,

then her parents told her
they would take away
her car and horse,
so she didn’t,

which put the first crack
in my heart, though I did learn
my worth as a person,
which was less than the cost of
a 3-year old roan gelding,
and a ’68 VW in good condition,
but it didn’t bother me all that much,
cause things were
a lot more expensive then.

FEH # 20, 1996