Dateline, June 17, 2022 - I just came across the following in a sealed manilla envelope that probably hasn't been opened since the late 1980s, if not earlier. Dated November 1979, I wrote this poem for Debbie soon after we were in a horrible car crash one night out in the desert with two friends. I don't really recall writing the poem, but I'm looking at it written in blue ballpoint ink, in my handwriting with my KD initials at the bottom, followed by "11/79 - DEBBIE".
What's really striking is that it was at the bottom of a stack of poems that spoke of my terrible sadness at the breakup with my first girlfriend that happened in the summer of 1979. The poems were organized with the earliest one on top, and the latest, this one, on the bottom. From June until October 1979, the poems are wrenching and sad. (And not very good.) Then there's this one. From then on my life took place outside that sealed manilla envelope.
You and I
Fate, what can it do?
Oh, what Fate can do...
Anything I'd give for it
Never to have happened.
I saw my face flash in the sky
You beside me,
I'm glad we didn't die,
We're lucky, you and I.
But something happened,
I don't know what,
I don't care how.
But I know that in myself
I grew attached.
The puzzle pieces clicked.
We bonded, you and I.
You and I, we lived it through
You and I, we're both alive.
Here we are together,
Here we are alive,
Alive and in love together,
You and I.