Breaking Someone's Heart - Elizabeth Weld Nolan

I practiced in the schoolyard: tossing
my braids as I dared the boys to outrun me.
They couldn’t until they grew taller.
I trampled on the feelings of my boy playmates:
``No, I don’t want to play today.’’
In junior high, I told my friend
at the prom I’d go steady with him
but only part-time. After college,
in New York City, I told my date,
a man who was growing fond of me,
as we sat on a hill in a moonlit garden,
I was in love with a man named Sam,
his name, but that it wasn’t him.
He withdrew into the shadows, his face
closed. I tossed my long hair,
unbraided now, and went home
to the letter bringing me the news
that my heart I’d been keeping safe
and apart was no longer wanted, free
now to break or mend or become
a most careful user of love.