Number One

I was a poet.

My very first boyfriend, a boy from Queens who was visiting my neighbors who were his cousins, for the summer, was named David. I first met him when he arrived a couple of months earlier for spring break and after we discovered each other, he pledged his heart to me and promised to come back in June. And he did.

He was tall, a basketball player. He told me that we'd get married one day. I liked that; though I was only 14, I liked the idea that someone wanted to marry me. He also told me that his philosophy in life was to "look out for Number One." I'd never heard that expression before and I asked him just who this "Number One" was. I was a bit appalled when he told me that it was he, but I tried to get over it. But he was not lying, that one.

The first part of his visit was wonderful. Since we were both too young to drive, we spent our days and nights just hanging out around home. It was great and I was convinced it was true love.

But things soon started to turn ugly. At 14 I wasn't what you would call "experienced," you know, in the sex department. And I didn't want to be, either. But David, the worldly guy from the big city, he was on a mission. He cajoled and convinced, pouted and made stuff up, all in the name of getting me to agree to, you know, do you-know-what. I held him at bay; the more I did that the more pissed off he got. What had started out as (what I thought was) a beautiful romance, had become a cruel trick! I didn't understand this boy anymore, why at 14 he found the idea of sex so all-consuming and urgent. He finally broke up with me and started to bring other girls around the block. Oh, I was heartbroken.

I have books filled with poetry written in the throes of that heartbreak. The poetry sucks, but the sentiments are there.

I remember so well those feelings of spiraling through the universe on nothing but a fine thread. I wanted a boyfriend, but I also wanted him to respect me. I wanted to be in love, but I wanted it to be innocent. I wanted out of that hurt desperately, and I could not believe how long it followed me around. It was well over a year before I got over him. Moon-faced and tearful, I moped and wrote ridiculous verse, all in the name of some idiot who gave me up over the one thing I wanted to hold sacred.