On Letting Go

Letting go and growing old.

Into a box, your memory, I pack and I fold.

We forgot what it feels to be "young and in love",

And instead sat, headphones on, in our own single worlds.

In a bed we lay, not touching most nights, 

Sober and quiet and far from the lights,

Minds drifting to our jobs, our work and our studies, 

Ignoring the feeling of the pressing of our bodies.

Our project became still and stagnated,

And like background radiation, we droned and no longer communicated.

I think back to your thoughts after that holiday we had.

We'd enjoyed ourselves: we were young, we'd had fun. 

We drank wine by night, and in the day we sipped sun.

But when we got back home, to the clouds and the cold,

There was something on your mind that I had to be told.

You felt pressured and unsure of our path.

We were a star on its way to collapse.

"And beyond that it's black," you said. "And I'm afraid of the dark!"

But I showed you the sun we'd soaked up abroad,

And with this we banished the darkness and its warmth we absorbed.

What would have happened if we'd known then,

That these were deep doubts, that they'd rise again?

We moved back to the city, "Together at last!"

And were happy and hopeful after two years apart.

I don't know if we were pushed or did we choose?

But I do know I wish I'd known that we would lose.

So we spent some time together, but more time away.

Our light dimming, getting cold as the darkness grew each day.

We asked if our attempts to make us fusile were futile,

Dreading that the answer was we were doomed either way.

To leap into darkness, to forget ourselves,

We are born again, reincarnated.

Or is that reincarcerated?

And when, years from now, I sleep beside a different face, 

Will I be caught off guard and dream of you,

A photograph that says, "Nothing's changed"?

Will I wake up sweating, half-deranged, and murmur to her that "I need some space"?

I'll pad through the corridors of our house together,

Running the taps to rinse your image from my retina.

Then I'll pour some water and go back to her.