Sonnet #3: Hilary Olson

With eyes of burning light,

Ah me, ah me,

You pulled me from my fruitless fight,

And let me see

That all the things that I adored,

I could find in someone new,

That all the things that I abhorred,

Were far from what I saw in you….

And yet our age and our ways

Would not cross but pulled apart,

And so I spent my days,

Mending a broken, shattered heart,

And in the end, of all the beauty I have seen,

Ah me, ah me, yours will forever be the one within my dreams.

On Hilary

Then

I was all alone in High School. Few friends….actually a couple….a fruitless pursuit of a girl who would not even look my way….and nothing else. I was kicked around and insulted and beat on and picked on and yet there wasn’t a moment that I wasn’t smiling. Because I had found three people to take care of me.

Hilary, Amber, and Katie. I don’t think I will ever forget them as long as I live…I don’t think I could if I wanted to. I still see Katie every now and then here on campus, where she goes…and in a way, I carry a piece of them all in me. It’s almost as if they were the ones who truly bore me….

I play the saxophone…so did Amber.

I go to UW-RF…where Katie goes.

I’m an English major…Like Hilary was.

What an amazing time I had with them. Here, the most miserable freshmen guy who could only live vicariously through his deeds and extracurriculars and here he was hanging out with three excessively attractive senior girls.

I went to Chicago and they were the ones who stayed with me. I regret for all my life that we never got that picture together….never. Hilary and Amber really were the two who remained by my side and Katie now is the only one I ever see.

I gave my very first poem to Hilary….and I thought for sure that I had killed her cuz she was about ready to bawl in the middle of choir when she confronted me. And I lied. I told her it wasn’t me because I didn’t want to face rejection…I didn’t want to be responsible for her crying like that. Later I told her and we never spoke again for some reason…..

Now

Now….I still think there is a piece of me that loves Hilary simply because she was absolutely divine. Absolutely beautiful, smart, great laugh, everything. She went off to college and I saw her a couple times at Red Barn plays lately with a slight embarrassed head nod and not many words between us.

And that is why I’m so afraid of asking people. Things like this always happen. I confess to someone and they become a shadow, a ghost, they fade from my life and the planet and soooo many girls have done this. Some return, but it’s always too late….after we’ve already parted ways and we can’t pull ourselves back together on the road….and the worst part is not that they didn’t love me, which hurts….but the worst part is that I missed all that great time being their friend. I missed all that time with Hilary at the end of the year with her celebrations and her parties and all the fun and I missed all those great times with so many….

*Sigh* I think back on that and wonder what I was thinking asking her. She was leaving at the end of the year, she was beautiful and smart, and here I was a stupid freshmen dork with nothing to offer and dreams of becoming something that may yet never be.

To love someone like her was a privilege….for what little time we had together.