Let's all congratulate Greg on winning the June contest. Here's his winning poem..........stan

Elizabeth, I'm Sorry (JUNE CONTEST)
Submitted by gregwa8 on Sun, 2018-06-24 01:49
my tongue is tied now
as it was then
around yours
in the library parking lot
my first French kiss
a language that I didn’t speak then
and still can’t

sometimes there is no need
for words
but sometimes I wish
for nothing more
than to put the deepest parts
of my heart
on my lips
express
how absolutely
terrible
I feel

that while you were struggling
with cancer
in the battle for your life
probably the loneliest
the most scared
you’ve ever been
I was off down the
high school halls
looking for
someone else to kiss

my silence
my absence
haunts me
still
twenty five years later

it’s not that I didn’t love
talking to you
for hours and hours
in the middle of the night
in middle school
on our rotary phones
until you or I
fell asleep
on the other line

or that I wouldn’t care
if you were there
one day
and gone the next

it’s that I didn’t know
at fourteen years of age
anything about
the mute void of death

and the way that you
might never
get the chance
to say
the two words
most important
in the English language
after, “I love you”

Elizabeth,
I’m sorry