Would have; should have…
Broken rhythm and rhyme scheme:
a ‘sonnetized’ romantic metaphor. :)

“Love is being stupid together.”
~Paul Valery (French Poet, Essayist, Critic, 1871-1945)

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche (German classical Scholar, Philosopher, 1844-1900.)

Illustration: Gustav Klimt: The Kiss

It’s good you didn’t kiss me, I’d have died
a kind of death so perilously live
I’d be lost to me, trusting you, untried;
all yours to keep or having used, despise.
I’d have matched the yearning I read in your eyes,
mesmerized, reflection of my own,
and tossed the chasm of our years aside
for careless rapture like I’ve never known.
That I was saved the censure of the times,
and the risks, left me with a sense of loss,
more than feeling blessed I’d missed first love's crimes;
the one bridge, fear of falling, I’d have crossed.
So ripe for romance, but for circumstance—
I’d have waited—we were cheated by chance.

© Helga Ross 2007