I'll have to stop thinking of you;
it is too much like kissing a dying rose
or speaking into a void
hearing only my own echos.

It is too teen-aged sad
to obsess like this;
memorizing your phone number backwards,
counting the steps to your house,
taping your photo inside my bra,
making up excuses
to be where you are,
or might be,
lingering
long after it is clear
you're not there,
and not coming.

I'll have to snip these little traces of you from my mind;
remove your after-shave from the medicine cabinet,
cease discretly inquiring of you
from mutual friends
whilst I pretend,
no real interest.
 

But they are not fooled;
they see this obsession's grip
and I'm sure silently lament
my entanglement in its delicate cords.

And I, on my part,
while acknowledging it is odd and maybe unhealthy
for me to behave like this,
my Hearts Heart
knows what I really feel--
which is its better to have these memories
than to inhabit some memoryless void.

No, better to wrap you lovingly
among my Gentle Regrets
than sleep with a dying rose
slowly bleeding
from its pin-prick thorns.