all I learned— portrait of the artist as a young fool

It’s misty tonight.
I wanted you to walk with me all the way to the harbour,
blurred by rain—but you didn’t.
You’re still angry and I’m to blame.

It sounded like a good opening, but would it work? A letter dropped in her mailbox—a note left in her door? It all seemed so weak and pathetic.

I pulled up my collar against the damp cold. I was wandering streets without her, lost in my own dream.

My thoughts went back to that beautiful fall afternoon. We were walking up Philosopher’s Walk heading toward Bloor Street and the Coffee Shoppe.

“I saw you speaking with Trish,” she said, and stared straight ahead.

She hadn’t raised her voice. She even whispered the words. It seemed so benign, but I knew different.

“I was asking her about the Victorian Poetry assignment.”

It was a safe reply and true—as far as it went, but Rebekka wasn’t buying. I could tell by the way she walked on in silence letting the frost from her breath hang in the air.

I watched the cloudy mist and wished I could decode its secret semaphore, or understand its pantomime.

Damn! I was doing it again—lost in my own thoughts, not paying attention to what was real.

“You don’t really care, do you Richard? Do you ever think about me and what I feel?”

Here it was. I had been expecting it, and wasn’t surprised by anything, other than her rage.

I measured my thoughts, calculating a response—much like measuring out life in coffee spoons. Eliot’s image seemed so appropriate in this situation…

“Ouch!”

She slammed her books hard into my shoulder and turned on me in fury.

Her dark hair was disheveled and lips curled back. She was a she-wolf cornered, defending her own. I was struck by the poetry of the gesture. How would I describe her? –A dark gypsy tormented by passion? No wait—wasn’t that a mixed metaphor?

“Richard!” She was pleading. “Are you listening to me at all?”

I watched the rosebud lips, the gentle curls that framed the pale heart-shaped face.

She was Catherine and I was Heathcliff and we were standing on a windswept moor.

The thought struck me. It might not be a moor but a cliff, a rocky outcropping backed by towering clouds.

I turned back to face her and she was gone.

I looked about wildly, feeling lost, a madman.

I was Heathcliff abandoned by his soul mate.

I scanned the path, but she was gone—probably up the stone stairs to the street and out of my life forever, laughter‘s glow on her lips.

No…not laughter…suffering—yes, that was it—a pained look on her face.

I walked on alone to the Coffee Shoppe to pen this latest poem.

I’d give it to Trish, just to spite Rebekka—that’d serve her right.

I did give it to Trish and she, of course, fell in love with my words and the abstracted stare that drew out her soul and filled her with longing.

It lasted a week, until she like Rebekka, stormed out of my life.

So, here I was, wandering misty streets while watery wraiths of lovers past inhabited the doorways.

I had it—my epiphany—my moment of grand revelation:

No one alive

Knows more than I

The misery of love unrequited…

So, walk with me,

My Love,

Tonight…

All the way to the harbour,

Blurred by rain.

I was wandering streets without her, lost in my own dream—one poem to the good and two women to the bad, but nevertheless, the winner.

I was content.

There’d be no need to mail the letter.