I sit here
and try to figure out what you gave me.
What did you give me besides regret?
Regret that it was I who decided not to even try anymore.
Regret that climbing the dune to follow the moon
like a couple of moths
did not work.
The stars were shining, and we were just two people.
Searching for seaglass and talking about ideas.
How can something like that not work?
Snagging a smile away from my lips
and placing it on your own.
Holding the door open
and giving me a sweatshirt for my feet when they were cold.
What could we have survived? What could we have weathered?
Would this world have been perfect if we had been together.
not a question
not a statement
somewhere in between being close to tears
and close to relief.
I find myself unsure.
Do I hate you or are we friends?
Or do we fall into the abyss of in between.
What I learned, is that no matter how brief of a time
that you let your heart hang open
it still changes you.
You brought out something different than what he brings out in me.
You brought out the wild, the thought provoked, the selfish. You brought out the fear, the confusion, the shrinking away. You brought out the analyzing, the complete, the broken.
Whatever it is that you brought out, it is still here. Those parts of me still exist. But they coexist instead of being caged. They life in another's eye now, which seems bizarre. Like a heart transplant. But it has saved.
