The poet is saying that love and pain could be similar because, sometimes you cannot have love without pain. I believe that the poet is referring to a personal event in his life. He refers to things such as “for Eternity” his means that he wants to spend forever with that someone. I believe the poet is regretting not asking the person to marry him because, he is saying “Don’t believe me, please, if I say that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen, of asking you if you would marry me”, this means to me that he is asking forgiveness as he had scared them and he is trying to say what he really wanted to ask them. He also says “Two burning rings” this is like him saying my love for you is strong for you and I just want to marry you.