Five years later.

A Poem by Emma

Love does not end overnight
or in the time it took me to drive away.
It does not disappear over a hand gone too far
or because of words shared in a drunken disaster.
It ends when it does not see you,
when it hears of another,
when a touch feels cold on the skin,
when it was scared of your hand.
It ends when I can say
“I do not love you anymore,”
and that makes me ache.

Everything was rushed and hushed
and when I wanted you to dance in the rain
you pulled me out of the street.
I wanted to scream to the heavens
and you could barely whisper in my ear.
I wanted to show you to the world
and you couldn’t even see me in the daylight.
You never held me through my tears
but smiled and told me “it happens.”
You never took the scissors away
but smiled and told me “you’re strong.”
You smiled and said you loved me
and that was all I ever got.

I knew you cared but never felt it,
I knew you loved me but never saw it -
I fear now that I never knew it at all.
I fear I was holding onto the past
for fear of my future,
and I feared the future for what it held.
I will never be loved or cared for
or wanted with both the hands and the heart.
I will never experience
a piece of what I wanted you to give me -
what I wanted to give you.

I took your words from the past
and made them our future -
you had never spoken about the days to come.
I took the promises you made and the silver on a string
and I hung them years ahead of themselves -
you never cared when that string broke.
I took the first touch and let myself believe
that it meant you would care forever.
Maybe you will care forever.
Maybe I held on to what I thought could grow
and left you to tend to the seed.

I was cryptic in my thoughts
but your touch was never discovering.
My hear was a mess of jigsaw pieces
that you barely tried to put together.
Yet here you are at the end of the puzzle,
expecting someone to fill the void,
while I am the piece hiding under the carpet,
waiting for someone to pick me up.
I do not fit you; I do not fit anyone.

I am sorry for always expecting to fit you
but I am sorry to myself for apologizing when I didn’t.
I am sorry for telling you I felt unloved,
but I am sorry to myself for taking so long to say it.
I am sorry for the pain this will cause you,
but I am sorry to myself for the pain
of not loving you anymore.