To a Summer Past
What is there twixt yourself and me?
Love? Hope? Three hundred miles?
There’s the horizon and naught else to see:
We frown since we cannot see our smiles.
I’ve spent two months short of a year,
Waiting to sweep you off of your feet.
Four with your voice within my ear,
Whispering words, loving and sweet.
We met and danced at the last ball
Then weeks we laughed and cried and talked
As summer slowly waned to fall
You lay at home whilst streets I walked.
You lay, my head in hand, in bed
Whilst I held yours in autumn night
We’d speak until our phones went dead
Or till the sun gave morning light.
But. The word that turns the situation faux
Appears so frequently within my mind
But this, but that, but, I don’t know;
And soon, ’tis all that I can find.
Three months have gone since we spoke last
Of summer plans and separate lives
Our love has fled us much too fast
And now it shrivels, soon to die.
For months you’d been my one addiction
But our paths may never cross again
Yet I will not dismiss my hopes as fiction
Aurevoir, my love, my dear, my friend.
I met this girl at CTY Carlisle in 2002 and can attest that she was my first infatuation. At the time, and for several months afterward I truly loved her, and knew nothing about her. She had dated Lefty of the Criminals, but by the end of the three week session they broke up. I only talked to her on move-out day, but we also danced the previous night. I then went to an art retreat at Big Bass Lake, PA, and called her every night. That one week of art camp was incredibly eventful, but I have no retained emotions other than from talking to her. My intent was to come to CTY the following year and date her, but my hopes only made my parents’ decision to abandon my involvement in the program the more painful.
I did see her again after that – after she had been with my roommate Steve, and leader of the Criminals, Simon, and quite a few other guys. I had gone to visit this other girl in DC, and unluckily missed her. This girl put me up and I hung out with her, was invited to a threesome by some unrelated girl but declined, and finally cemented that what I had felt for Holly had been infatuation. I was almost hurt to have lost whatever feelings I had had for her. I would still enjoy her company though, so I think that one day I might visit her just to reminisce about CTY.
