True Love? Poem by RIC BASTASA

i know what true love is.
i had it once. How many times will i take pride in this?
NOT once i assure you
There will be another time that i will tell you about it
its language is only between
the two of us, i fully remember when we were together
in church and people laugh and we did not
because we know
what we feel.
I assure you, it is true love.
It makes the world real, hands that get hurt,
hair that gets burned by a lamp,
lips that spit blood sometimes
but not everything in it is pain
there was a time when true love was born
inside the car
we had it, we never felt shame
we felt so right
and wanted a repeat performance
we did not speak about it
but we always remember it
like the full moon.
True love, at the end i tell myself
I don't need it
For me to survive.
And indeed, i survive, it is not always painful.
But it is, once, it was
very painful.