First Love, First Light

 Joel wrote this poem after a VERY brief marriage to a girl he met and fell in love with in 1996. I think he told me the marriage only lasted a few weeks, if that. His mental illness was still not being addressed.


First Love, First Light 

My world was darkness, no knowledge of light

Warmed by a sun of isolation, to me it was bright

Comfortable coldness, no knowledge of heat

The blindest kind of person you ever would meet.

 

Daylight brilliantly dawns, senses shockingly awaken

A soft hand in mine, now I’m neither alone nor forsaken

Days of joy and laughter, dizzying heights of passionate love

Tingling in their embrace, like I was in Heaven above.

 

A shadow crosses my face, awareness flashes through my mind

The bleakness of my past – I was cold, lonely, and blind

With reckless abandon, and absolute devotion

From innocent trust and overwhelming emotion.

 

I expected nothing but good at the hands of my lover

Our future together, with a new world to discover

In the blink of an eye, my world was torn asunder

The truth was, I was a conquest, a trophy, and my body their plunder.

 

Their words ripped open my chest, tore out my heart

Dashing my hopes, while my world was shattering apart

She gutted my spirit, tore my soul in half,

Left broken and bleeding, she walked away with a laugh.

 

My knees started buckling as I stumbled and fell

Pushed out of Heaven, straight down into Hell

A totally new realm, that’s all mine to explore,

Still able to feel, now a thousand times worse than before.

 

My wide open eyes stare out unseeing, my innocence lost

Among torturous memories, I’m buffeted and tossed

New found wisdom and experience, through devastation,

I’ve learned how to avoid emotional evisceration.

 

First time, first love, first light, first rejection and pain

My selfish desires coursed like a fast moving train

Looking back now, it wasn’t love. It just wasn’t meant to be.

I took what she offered and learned nothing is free.

 

~ by Joel Purkerson

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