1972 - As Still I Do

I loved you, Ron
As still I do
I miss you so
My heart is blank
Without you.
Why can't I hate you, feel anger or offense
Because I'm a fool, a loving, losing fool
And because I take as much as I give ---
Far too much.

I loved you so --
You never loved me
I know that now --
There was no time I meant ought to you
You took & took & never gave
You never learned to love or give
& I was only nuisance, patting you & touching you
And hoping to get love from you,
I watched you from the corner of my eye,somehow & some -
why, devouring every sight of you & what & why? Why? I loved your lankiness, your tall, slim body - your darkness in mood & color -
Somehow for some twisted reason within me I think I even loved your abuse of me. I was so willing to do it all for you. Oh, my God, how I tried for you. Even now, the memory of how I tried to show my love for you pulls tears from out my eyes. I ache & feel not the fool because I meant so well - and you sat there sullen or asleep, escaping your own particular hell with head in hands & darkness in your look. I didn't see it then, I was so full of steep feeling for you - I ate you up, I absorbed your presence like a sponge s0 full of wonder somehow, I was awed by you - I felt your torturedness, your far-away-ness, your deep & old lost-ness - I ached for you & loved you more for that ache, wanting so to share your pain if only you could speak it out & open up your closed self to me - who opened up & exposed my very bone & heart & center to you tho your blinded eye could see not my pain, my love, my need, but only your own & this is what I yet understand & blame you not for, for you are blameless. You are twisted out of shape through others' faults & thus your own were formed & striking out & searching out, you hunt & took & never felt the harm you did.

But still I love & feel for you & always shall - all my life I will carry through to death the sweetness of a word here, a look there, a touch - all whose meanings were the richer for their rarity. I will & can & have fooled myself so completely so I never never shall believe, no never shall I ever feel that all of it was sham - no, those moments were true, the true you, the light shining through - the pure water bubbling up thru the hate & abandonment & resentment, what did I do but give you more of the same & what penance shall I pay for all my life for writing you the truth about yourself in my hurt & my abandonment. My only justification is my mind, reminding & pounding into my heart the certain truth that never did you care.

Oh, my dear boy, if only you could have given me, loved me - but naught is naught & hurt is hurt & on you go to other sources, which I'm sure you'll find - your "charm" & "good looks" will not fail you for so long a time but know I this & you may know it, too, that no one will ever love or need or want you more than I did = for 4 months - a whole lifetime of joy & misery, of love & confusion hoping true was false, & you were as I thot & wished & still believe a deep, down lost layer of you were & was & is --