Once, a long long time ago,
On an icy cold night exactly like tonight
I sat, wreaking of my youth,
On the frozen steps
Of Joan of Arc Chapel
On the Marquette campus
Writing a letter to a lover
Not intending any harm,
Inadvertently breaking her heart
While the illuminated fountain lay still
I have blamed my circumstances -
That I had no other choice,
That I just had to be honest
I have blamed the frozen landscape -
Those icy steps I sat on,
The freezing temperature and the wind chill,
The icicles hanging from the church
I have blamed myself -
That it was my young inexperienced heart
That I only wanted to do the right thing
I swore I would never again
Use my pen as a sword to a heart
I vowed the oath that fateful night -
After I posted that letter
Funny how I never shed a tear writing it
But cried after mailing it,
Hot tears on my cold face
My running nose freezing above my lip
Until I got to my new love's door
Free of my albatross
The deed was done and I was free
Relief glazing over me as I knocked
A door closing firmly behind me
Another door about to open
But when it did I realized
I made one paramount mistake
The one whose heart my own craved
At the expense of the heart I broke
Would never belong to me
For it beat in a different direction
My new love had her love at her side
And I was left out in the cold alone
The sword I'd struck was at my own heart
When I used my pen that icy cold night -
That night so much like tonight
I never shed one tear when wrote that letter
Ah! The heart most broken was mine!
Oh! How many tears I have tasted since!
And tonight reminds me so well...
And I think of Joan of Arc Chapel
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