Looking Back

I slip on my high school class ring,
Hoping for some sort of time machine -
But the memories are faded now, the feelings almost gone.
For some reason I am surprised each time that it still fits,
Probably because it doesn't feel like the same finger anymore.
My heart, my head, my body have changed so much since then,
I can't believe that it really happened, much less that it happened to me.
I used to pine for my first love, to ache for my foregone innocence;
But they are both lost to me.
The names are slipping, the faces blurring - the black and white have turned to grey.

But the heart is not so easily put out.
It guides me through the fog to happy memory;
My crush in seventh grade, singing "If you want my body" in the back of the school bus;
My first love calling me beautiful after I was hit by a car,
when I couldn't stand to look in the mirror.
The people are gone, the relationships extinguished,
But the fire is never-ending.
It does not sustain me. It does not define me.
But it will always be a part of who I am.