It was a crisp, fine, autumn day.
The sun shone on the brightly colored leaves.

The afternoon was perfect, the day he went away.
It's so clear the way my memory it retrieves.

I remember how wonderful I felt.
The sheer joy that I had in my heart...

and just in the way that Fall itself smelt!
Never did I think that he would depart.

I remember a sense of unrealness and feeling very small.
I felt numb and devoid of feeling. I guess I was in shock.

It was my first time of ever being in love, after all.
Somewhere there was the loud ticking of a clock.

Time stretched out and morphed into days.
I remember he looked different and not himself.

I got up to leave, not saying a word. I was in a haze.
I turned and looked back him and thought to myself.

' This isn't the man with whom I fell in love.'
' This isn't the man who kept trying 'til I gave my heart.'

I'd found out he didn't know this thing called love.
He didn't care about me and afterwards, I fell apart.

It took me a long time to get over him and this.
Years to overcome that terrible need for him I had.

It took me way too long to forget his kiss.
I wouldn't let myself to ever again feel that sad!

Years passed, I kept myself away from love and life.
I threw myself into work and close personal friends.

Away from romantic woes and all that strife.
I also didn't allow in any of love's many dividends

I had a closed up life and a tighter closed up heart.
Rolled up in the cotton battened existence I'd made,

I didn't realize I'd kept myself and love apart.
I didn't see that my loving nature was starting to fade.

I awoke, one day from my safe cocooned life.
I blew off the fears and sorrows that ruled me for years.

I began to live, fell in love and became someone's wife.
I learned that you have to risk everything, rather than remember all the tears.

Painful times shouldn't be forgotten.
Lessons learned can't be untaught.

Just don't let yourself, by these, become downtrodden
or ever let love's battles go unsought.