– And then, on one fine summer’s day,

You would finally see me, recognise who I am

Without all the mud and muck and blood on my face,

And you’d kiss me, one on each cheek

While they appled from how I’d be grinning,

Grinning so hard my eyes would crinkle and my jaw would ache

From the force of the embrace.

Sometimes, I still think about it –

The way it’s so easy to imagine myself asking you to do

What I’ve always secretly wanted to be done.

Tear me apart, and then prove you

Can build me back up, show me how time was never the problem,

That the essence in itself was just enough,

Splayed out right there in front of us…

But that’s not how this story ends, is it? No, I know –

Instead it ends with me wanting attention, being an addict, wishing for fewer reasons to yearn.

It’s so hard not to tug you back and tell you never to return,

I know you think of me when you think of her, I whisper,

Hoping that I can make you believe it too… but that wasn’t quite how it went either.

Really, I was greedy. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too,

Because the two of you by yourselves don’t work, but together we could be so good, and I’d go anywhere 

For me and us and you –

Now, though, it seems we’re at a crossroads.

I’m looking at you from across this lake

And realising that I don’t know you at all, yet again.

You’re still carrying your luggage next to you, heavy-duty load.

You were always two steps away from me, distantly charming,

And I always had one foot out of the door,

Casually afraid to mention that I wanted more

While I couldn’t tell if you knew and this was your way of running.

I’m at peace with it now, I think.

Sometimes I just wish that there was something I could have done

To make you see yourself the way I do,

To make you say you loved us too.

But I feel like maybe something between us 

Shrivelled up and died. 

I’m walking away, but it doesn’t hurt. 

I feel like this time, by myself, I’m finally alive.

Image courtesy of Pacto Visual