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Item
Four
Written
about 1968
Background:
I'm self-centered. I admit it. I have always admitted it.
In general, I
can't put someone else's needs ahead of my own. I can't even
equate them to my own. I must look out for number one, and
unfortunately number one is me.
We all want to
be loved, and we're willing to give affection in return. But
merging one's self completely with another person, pulling up stakes
to be there, giving up one's own life? "Whither thou
goest, I will go"? That's a route that I haven't wanted to take.
Nevertheless,
in college someone meant enough
to me that I wrote the following to her. I broke into poetry,
into a sonnet even.
But then, of
course, I kept the note to myself. I find it now, loose, among
my papers.
(The
significance of the title, if any, has been lost. In the line
in which it appears, it may be there merely for the rhyme; it even
breaks the scansion, although in an effective way.) |
I have
come as close to loving you as I will ever come to loving another.
Why?
The sparkle, enthusiasm, which made me feel liked by a wonderful person.
Take away
the sparkle, or give more enthusiasm to someone else, and I feel
rejected. My hands are tied. I'm unable to get through to
you. I fail.
But can I
claim to love thee? Wherefore so?
I doubt
that I would give my life for thine
Should
circumstance demand that one must go.
I please
instead to live this life of mine.
Or if I
lived a thousand miles away,
I would
not fly to meet thee at thy call,
To raise
thy weak'ning spirits or to play,
Abandoning
my work for days withal.
It is a
pattern deep within my grain:
It matters
naught how lovely thou may be,
Or how
much happiness I hope to gain;
I'll not
give all my love, my life, to thee.
I love
thee not, then? Item four:
I'll
never love another person more.
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