Had I Anything To Tell You

       
Had I anything to tell you
as college years went by,
when mornings saw me
harried, flying into seats
in massive lecture halls;
and evenings found me
serving in some  bar,
where jocks and drunks
smashed  windows
and a man was stabbed one night.

I was the young one,
my senses were illusions,
damages ran too deep,
and scattered to repair.

I'd never had a blueprint,
in a life that seemed to wander,
and my soul circled endlessly
through corridors of books,
down rows and rows
of thousands of numbers
in a library,
where knowledge
was a letter on a floor in a room
and a syllabus was guidance
for the journey.

Had I anything to tell you
in those lost days back in school -
I should have told you,
at the pond
in the field of Oklahoma,
I was too young ,
and hadn't a clue

doing wheelies,
dragging bumpers,
riding cardboard
over ice -

Even old memories have flavors,
Jelly touches the tongue.

I never really told you, or
knew at 17, that days would
turn to years and later on
I'd find regret for having
ever hurt you.