love, first draft

i remember everything about you 
the jeans you wore when we were eighteen
a chevy nova that smelled like sex and cigarettes and oil
god i loved that car
your teenage room where 
we first had sex how
i stripped naked in the lamplight and stood as proud as could be,
Athena, commanding you to sex 
and you were just going to be a great time with a safety net,
but when you pressed your mouth onto my mouth
i closed my eyes and tried not to cry
because love was spilling out from our bodies
out through my eyes and through the crack underneath your dark door
into the hall, where your parents, trying to watch tv
looked backward and then at each other and smiled.
what took you two so long,
your dad asked me weeks later when it was obvious 
we were a thing.
i couldn't tell him the truth, any of it,
but i couldn't hide it either.

i did everything i could do not to fall in love with you.
my car broke down at the community college 
i called you, feeling scared,
the parking lot was enormous and dark and i was alone
and i didn't want to be raped.
come help me, please, i said,
but there was no question
i never questioned if you would come help me,
of course you would and of course you did,
to Alaska or down the street at 7-11.
sitting on the curb and trying to be reasonable
about fear,
the light turned purpling blue, my favorite evening-tide.
into that tide you rode,
inside your big truck, i saw you coming and i stood

you pulled into a random parking spot and slid out of 
your truck and then sat on top of the hood.
you lit a cigarette and took a drag,
and smiled at me
waiting for me as i walked through that dark parking lot
now blue-black and lit with scattered street lamps.
and i walked toward you in that goddamn beautiful light
your hazel eyes glinting at me,
and i knew that i had never and probably never would
have a more perfect moment of romantic love.