Rebecca

The first time I found love I saw glasses and a smile with braces and a girl who never knew how much I cried when she left. Her name is lost in my memory but she shaped me and made me realise how unrequited love would be and how sad that I never cried as much since.

You were not my first - far from it - and by the time I held your hand and you held mine and we both pretended not to notice this casual and intimate caress I had worked out how not to show my pain.

Perhaps if you had been that girl you would have seen my tears and realised how precious they were.

I am sorry. How predictable I was. The end was a mess and the beginning was so full of soft promise and butterfly kisses - delightful and innocent.

How is it I have turned into this? Middle aged and not easy on the eye but the same yearning and the same young boy made lonely by history and repetition.

If I could hold your hand now I would clench it tight and kiss you like my very life depended on it.