For you ( after you are gone)

An ode to A.S.

 

You always were so much, in some way too much for me.

From your smile to the way just your voice on the end of the phone

Always made my heart beat a little faster and make the edges of my mouth curl up

I loved how we could always steal a moment no matter wherever we were and it was only you and I. 

No one and nothing else mattered, and in that wonderful moment I truly felt joy, like when it was my birthday when I was a child. An entire day that was devoted to celebrating the fact I came, a time when I felt blameless, true, pure. 

When all my mistakes and missteps, all my failings and regrets were forgotten, weightless.

Those moments kept me warm when the crushing cold of you leaving, it kept me steady when I tossed back and forth by the realization that you would never come back to me. 

Those moments kept me standing when I felt like crumbling beneath the weight of the new day. 

Those memories kept me breathing when I started to drown beneath the waves of insecurity, self doubt and isolation. 

Those memories of us, that both saved and condemned me to a lifetime of living in the past.

So I sought out something, anything to free me of this blissful servitude, I did not find it in the bottom of a bottle, or in the daily grind of world. I did not find it in the nights out with my friends, or in the arms of a newer but lesser version of you. 

I found it in a place so simple, so profound, and so hidden that it was there all the time.

So in that place where truth, awareness, consciousness and acceptance met, I was renewed, reborn. 

I emerged as a man that you always saw me as and scared me to be. So I am here not to seek your grace, nor to find pleasure from my penance. 

I am only here to say a simple thank you for loving me when I couldn’t be loved, for being near when I was so far away, for giving me away so I could endue the bump and bruises of growing. 

For seeing the man inside, I couldn’t see, for showing me true love when it was my only fear. 

Because of your interest, I am more comfortable.

Because of your words, I am more aware.

Because of your love, I am at peace.