"Cinnamon and sugar and softly spoken lies."

She whispered this as we exchanged breath in the back of her small blue Toyota.

Starlight glimmered through the fogged windshield as we shined against one another. Sweat-slicked and covered in her sweetness, every groan was muffled. Gently, but with an urgency unspoken, she took me in her hand and gasped as the explosion rocked our worlds. Grinning in the darkness, I felt her taste us, and I shivered in our heat.

She laughed and licked her fingers. Nuzzling in the back of that Camry, I could hear her smile as she whispered again.

"I can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes."

Sometimes, I wonder if she still does.

My first love was a word, or two, or ten, all wrapped up in a cardboard cover and decorated with pictures inside and out. It was a book my parents read to me and then I learned to read myself. I don't remember which book it was, and that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that it was the first of many, many stories I encountered over my lifetime.

I am a monogamist in that I love reading, pure and simple. I love nothing else with the same depth or breadth as I do the printed word. I know what I like, and I read a lot of it. I do have dalliances, though, as I stray from my primary genre of science fiction to other genres, testing out the connections with mysteries, drama, romantic suspense. Maybe I'm best described as a serial monogamist, in that I have a favorite book and read it over and over, savoring the deliciousness of the language, but then I find another book and go through the process all over again.

Love can't be contained, though, nor should it. I revere the beauty of language, and reading has brought me to my love of writing, my need to express myself through the same words I found within the books' covers, and others I discovered elsewhere along the way. I also teach, to share my love with others struggling to find their way in the world of words. To be separated from my love would be akin to cutting away a part of myself. It is to my parents I must look to and thank for giving me a loving gift that could and has lasted me my entire life. Muchas gracias, mis padres. Se amo por este gran regalo.

My first love, a fellow swimmer

My mermaid sister in the sac

We floated together sharing

And exploring our wombed space

And nine months later we adventured

One shortly after the other

But, virtually, together

On a journey that's lasted

More than four decades- so

Far!

We've hugged and laughed

We've thrown stones

Called names

Teased and hurt each other

Others

Like magnetic poles, we

Are pulled to each other

Not opposites, but bound

By a womb-mate bond

A force, that can only be

Described as true love

Life's breathe

Before breathing air

Life's nourishment

Before latching

Love you womb-mate!!

She is beautiful,

But it's an eerie beauty,

Haunting in a romantic type of way.

She lurks in the shadows,

Calling to me softly like doves on an Autumn morning.

Her skin is as smooth and pale as fine china,

Glistening gently under the iridescent silver moonlight.

Long, coal black strands fall loosely around her chiseled features.

She glances at me through ice blue eyes,

Taunting me from across the room.

She preys upon me, knowing that I am weak.

I want to leave with her so badly.

I long to press my tired lips on her plush, inviting ones.

I ache for the comfort of her company.

She is desirable like no other.

She knows just how badly I angst for her touch.

Oh, how easily I could slip into her grasp,

Yet still she keeps her distance.

She understands that, once I am ready,

I will come running to her cold embrace.

I am consumed by pain.

I cannot wait a moment longer.

My heart throbs for the black haired beauty.

Through toilsome breaths,

I beckon her,

And with light steps,

She silently saunters towards me.

No words need to be exchanged.

We both know what is coming.

We both know what we want.

Her firm grip is asserted upon my shoulder.

With a swift movement, her lips suddenly rest on mine.

Slowly, I feel my body become numb.

My soul is no longer devoured by anguish.

Towering black wings burst from her back, exposing her true form.

She encases me in her warm plumage.

I feel a snap.

Death releases our lip lock,

My fading corpse no longer embraced by rich feathery darkness.

I did it.

At last, I have crossed over to the other side.   

My first love was Wuzzy.  A small stuffed bear with shoe-button eyes. A gift upon my birth, my first awareness was of this soft brown comforter always there for me. As I grew larger, he grew smaller but never left my bed. I'd hold him next to my cheek.  He always fit just right.

Wuzzy never blamed me when my parents fought and my dad stomped out slamming the door.  Wuzzy never hit me when I spilt my milk on my clean dress making mommy have to stop and change me.  Wuzzy understood that I was making the tiny river rocks more beautiful by putting them in my mouth to make them shine.

Wuzzy soaked up me tears so many times than his coat has become nubby from caring so much.  One day, my mommy took him to the laundromat and washed him. He didn't make it, but was turned from being my first love to a useless piece of dead fabric. We never found his eyes.  And all my mommy could say was, "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Fuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?"

My first Love was and is Creativity… specifically the sharing of…to me art is Love… no matter what shape it takes…visual, auditory, verbal, kinesthetic, etc…it demands a twosome…the giver and the recipient…as a child I was a spitfire of ideas…if I took up a project I would make several takes on it…who knows which was better or best…I viewed it all as an experiment…yes, a test…I like a challenge…that brings growth…fortifies the heart and propels the urge to share…

And as for humans…well not surprisingly, some poor fellow up the street from where I lived, who loved to share info…he seemed to know so much about the small creatures and plants that were surrounding us and everything really…he was unselfconscious…open to questioning…someone that spurred engagement with the world as material and spiritual…inspiring a desire to reciprocate and protect…we were six or seven…and his family moved away within a year or two…but in that short time he taught me how to be a Lover in the broadest sense of the word.

I sat in my parents car starry eyed at him as we me small talk in his driveway. All the while he sat outside the driver's side and threw small gravel rocks in the car rims but I fell in love!

The captain of the cross country ski team had to "cancel for a meet" but I was in love with him!

My mouth was red and sore from his braces as I was in love with tall Eric.

He wanted me to touch him 'there'. I didn't want to, but I was in love with Eric!

His voice sounded so good in the church quire. I joined the quire because Eric would be there.

My parents said we had to move away. I would have waited forever for Eric, but he didn't shed a tear and cheated on me the day before I moved away.

He avoided me and didn't say 'good-bye'.

I wrote many letters of forgiveness and longing. His silence spoke but I didn't want to or couldn't listen. His parents made him send the prom pictures four months later. 

I finally got it. 

Feather in his loaded cap

Blind as a lovesick bat

His feet upon his doormat

I hate to think of that

He never loved me back

From the top shelf of my small bedroom closet, my father exclaimed, "got it!" after fishing around among winter sweaters and boxes of photographs and produced the most beautiful thing I had ever seen - his childhood green baseball glove.  The webbing was circular, reminding me of the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.  Inside was a weathered baseball, keeping the pocket's form perfect, despite however many years the leather receptacle had been dormant.  

"You ready?" my father asked, as he blew away the layer of dust.  I think he knew my answer, even though I said nothing.  I didn't have to, as the smile on my six year old face must have said it all.  He handed me his glove and I immediately put it on my left hand. I can't remember if it fit properly, but I remember the smell.  I took the ball and held it in my other hand, ready to give it all I had.

We went down the hallway, through the living room, past the kitchen and into the back yard.  He immediately knew something was wrong when I threw the first ball his way. "Umm, that's right," he said.  "You're a lefty.  We'll have to get you one of these for the right hand, literally."

That day started my lifelong love - some may say obsession - with baseball.  Little League, J.V., then high school Varsity, followed by numerous tournament teams, then college. There was even an invitation for a Cleveland Indians tryout mixed in the timeline. 

To this day, I play in a men's league among other good players, all past our "prime."  But it's a love that we all share and refuse to give up.  That smell is still there, even if the 90 mph fastball may be long gone.  Thanks Dad.