She was like a radiant lily flower
She had that kind of shining beauty,
cornflower blue eyes and luxurious blonde hair,
wavy and below her shoulders
that could make a man gasp at the sight of it.

For two teenage summers she was my girlfriend
and we vowed one day we would get married.
But I should have known it would never last.
I was from the working class. My father worked in a factory.
She was from the middle class, her father an executive.

She was off to college. I didn’t have the grades or the money.
She became a homecoming queen. I became a jilted wreck.
when she left me for a rich college kid with the right pedigree.
Lived my life like a crazy man after that, not caring about anything.

Took me years to put the pieces of my heart back together.
I wasn’t as strong back then as I should have been, as I became with the years
and the knowledge that must people have broken heart moments
and disappointments as they travel on the mystery tour of this uncertain life.

Bob Boyd