They say its better to have loved, then to have lost, than never to have loved at all.

This is a poem dedicated to the love I lost.

I met her in college, I was seduced by her smile, her charisma and style,

And I loved how she wore her miniskirt, tight.

We met during the spring semester and I would never forget her, i

It felt like love at first sight.

Her name was Paradise.

And I was spellbound by her honey brown eyes, she smelled fresher than the scent of the spring,

And I knew it was real love, far from a fling, cuz inside of my stomach  I could feel the flutter of butterfly wings.

See back then I was a starving college student with no money to spend.

So I wrote Paradise love poems, 

I wrote of how her kisses tasted sweeter than cinnamon brown sugar and honeycombs

Evenings inside my place

we would cuddle in a passionate embrace

she would rub my hair listening to the love poems I read and wrote exclusively for her

See, being young and naïve I wanted to believe our love could withstand hurricanes and hard times

And once we weathered our storms we would be happily wed together, forever

However,

During her junior year in college her kisses began to feel cold like the frigid weather

Of the winter seasons,

My lack of money became the main reason

Paradise started receiving bad grades, complained her tuition couldn’t get paid

Due to the lack of financial aide

And I tried to persuade

Paradise to stay enrolled in college

But she was no longer thirsty for knowledge

She no longer wanted to pursue a college degree

She wanted a new pair of shoes and a shopping spree

And her birthday was coming up, so in order to purchase new boots

She decided to start stripping down to her birthday suit

It was then that temptation entered our relations

Disguised as a female acquaintance

Camouflaged between Gucci and Prada temptation was high maintenance

Temptation enticed Paradise to become a stripper

Gave her advice on how to spot a big tipper

Taught her how to keep men entranced

by moving her voluptuous hips during a lapdance

Paradise was on a mission to purchase purses from Christian Dior

She wanted diamonds that glisten and didn’t have time to listen to my love poetry anymore

Eventually she got her own place and we parted

I missed seeing her face and I was feeling lonely and brokenhearted.

But I would see her on tv making cameos In low budget music videos

I even heard she was doing pornos having her full naked body exposed.

But a few years ago, I got the news that Paradise was sick

Turns out she was slowly dying of the AIDS virus

In all these years we were apart I assumed she was married to a baller living in wealth.

But when I saw her, she was a shell of her former self, dying from deteriorating health.

Her skin was pale, she looked thin and frail,

she weighed less than 80 lbs on the scale, as a result of having a low count of T cells

and she admitted to having unsafe sex to get paid

because the men wore no latex she ended up contracting AIDS,

And she told me “Al, I learned that all that glitters aint gold

And I sold the devil my soul the day I started sliding down that stripper pole.”

I kissed Paradise on her forehead, lovingly held her hand

It was then I began to recite all the love poems I had written for her while back in college

And I tasted the bitter taste of my own tear stains

And I reminded her how her kisses used to taste sweeter than cinnamon, honeycomb, and sugar cane.

And after I finished my last poem, her health began to fail

She took her last breath and exhaled, and I kissed Paradise farewell

And I cried all night when I came home to write this poem

Wishing that Paradise had never died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

AIDS, she died of AIDS, and I swore if I ever came across a beautiful young girl

Who was mature but enticed

by the allure of selling her body for a price

I would tell her, “Sweetheart, no amount of money is worth your life”

And ironically just the other day dancing erotically

In front of me as I walked past a strip club, I saw a beautiful brown skinned exotic dancer

That reminded me of the love I lost

So I walked up to her in a gentle loving tone and told her these words

“Sweetheart always practice safe sex and never think twice,

Or you may end up paying the ultimate price”

And when she asked me why I was relaying this advice,

I recited this poem, of how I lost Paradise….