The Naked Snapshot

I started writing
these love poems
in 1978.

They were designed
to capture someone’s attention
through novelty,

and they sometimes
did that

but more often
they were failures.

I wanted them
to do the courting
the wooing
and perhaps in the back
of my mind

maybe they were supposed
to have the relationship
for me since
I was too scared
and inexperienced.

I liked the challenge
of trying to coax
a new way of saying
it
free from my stale language.

Something resembling
love would always appear
and then disappear
again and again

but then, I stopped

as I realized the fear:

too much of my writing
and my unformed heart
had been let loose
on a unsuspecting and
undeserving world.

I thought of all
my long hours of
counting syllables and
stretching metaphor being
unceremoniously
crumpled and dropped
in a waste basket
with the junk mail and
other unsolicited advertisements,

or worse, still,
I pictured a catty circle
of women – late night
half-drunk, reading
my swollen purple
vulnerable verse
and having a good mean chuckle
at my expense.

Hell,
I can't blame them.

Those poems were uniformly
self-conscious
and painfully amateurish,

but my most profound
fear is that a few of these girls
might have saved these
premature ejaculations
which were only dedicated to
getting past hello.

I picture a wall map
of California
with cities up and down
the state
lighting up
where I imagine
my stray thoughts
and eternal promises
have blown.

My prayer:

may these poems never
see the light of day,

may the world never know
the fat oily teenager
with bad hair
who poured out
his heart
as best as he was able,

may these poems be
our little secrets

each one
a private snapshot
of me –naked,

save for
a naïve and trusting heart
worn on the outside.

[Posted for #OpenLinkMonday imaginary garden with real toads challenge.]