just a memory...

as she eagerly listened to each chord, it felt as though she was right back to where she'd once started... she gazed upon the man with the guitar, breathing in the familiarity of his songs... she remembered when she'd stood and absorbed those lyrics... with him beside her...

she remembered his scent and the way he wore his clothes... the way he had introduced her to evan dando, and the lemonheads, and she'd felt changed ever since then... she remembered when he played her those same songs at his own pace in the depth of his warm, familiar room... strumming away, singing with the last of his breath and lulling her into a state of utopia... she took herself back to the time they'd stumbled upon evan in a dark alley, as pavement pumped on a boombox and the smell of marijuana bombarded her senses...

it feels like so long ago that she was his and he was hers... it feels like that because it's true... it's been a long time and yet it feels like it were yesterday that they exchanged "i love you"s and believed it would last forever... so many things have changed since that defining moment when she was new to a different world and he was clinging to stay a part of it... since he wrote her poetry and made the distance even more unbearable...

all it took were those familiar songs by that man with the guitar -- in a different place, but still from the same heart -- to woo her back towards those feelings... to cause her to pause and reminise... to make her realize how she'd never forget him... her first true love, perhaps...