Some fifteen years ago or so, I used to write poetry.
I used to write it all the time.
Every day.
Every.
Single.
Day.
I didn't wake up planning to write. I didn't walk around thinking I had something to say that needed to be shared, to be read, to be heard.
It just happened that way.
Then I stopped.
Almost as quickly as I started.
Whatever it was that caused me to pour my soul onto the sidewalk for passers-by to look at, or step over, or totally ignore, just wasn't there any more.
From time to time I wondered about that. Why I started. Why I stopped. What it cost me. What I gained from it. Whether it was even transactional or just a one way street that led down the hill and out to sea never to be seen again.
Yet here we are. Again.
Grasping at thoughts the way you try and catch the cobweb you just walked into face first in a bid to get rid of it as soon as possible as it being quick enough might erase the feeling it ever happened.
Doesn't sound like a positive reason does it.
I'll let you know how it goes, just as soon as I've washed my face.

Sometimes it's a lot.
And sometimes it's nothing.

I wish I had found in you,
all you had found in me.

This is not my poem
Sure I sat here and wrote it down,
but its not my poem.
Yes, yes I took the time to memorise it so I could see my words reflected in the expressions on your face as I read aloud...
but its not my poem.

This is your poem
You wrote this
You wrote this with your smile
the curve of your lips wrote this
the sparkle in your eyes punctuated every line and measured every pause, perfectly.
Your lips formed every word, sounded every syllable, created the melody that echos in my head as I write YOUR poem.

The rise and fall of your chest first catches my breath, then takes it away completely. Sensibilities and caution tumble down your back like rain in a warm summer shower that falls from a star filled sky, the heavens have opened. My heavens have opened. Caution is now a distant memory, like something once heard but long forgotten, something you knew you once knew but know you no longer have to remember so while there is at least an awareness of it, its passing will not be mourned.

And there, pooled in the small of your back, nestled just above the curve of your buttocks, lies hope.

The hope that the beauty I see in you, in us, in everything since we met isn't a mirage, isnt a projection of some one sided fantasy but that its real. That its as real for you as it for me and that I'm not alone. That I'm not alone in the way I feel and the way I think and the way........ the way.....the way I love. Its hope that knowing how I feel, how much I'm in love, in love with you, the hope that hearing me say out loud the very thing that I've had to fight telling you on a daily basis hasn't scared the **** out of you the way finally admitting it to you has me.
But this isn't my poem.
This is your poem.
You wrote it
and its my gift to you.

...after what feels like years of falling off the horse and being advised by well meaning friends that the best course of action is to get right back on, it has dawned on me that rather than falling off the horse I am indeed being thrown, as demonstrated by the invariable trampling I receive while trying to regain my feet. I have therefore decided to take this as life's way of telling me to stay the **** away from horses.

I think, at least some of us, fall in love instantly without even knowing it. And the time between then and the point where we actually admit it to ourselves, is more about acceptance, either social or personal, of how long it should take to "get there".

How else would you explain that once you know you're in love with someone its almost impossible to remember a time when you weren't in love with them.

The downside of this theory is that should things not work out, its so ******* ******* hard to get back to a time before, a time when you weren't in love with them.

And maybe we never do. Maybe we never fully recover.

Initially it's the immediate changes that carry the most pain. No morning greetings on your phone, no shared nonsense during the day, the kind of nonsense only couples share, the empty bed... the feeling of once again being alone.

In time though those moments get forgotten, or at least replaced by new routines that help avoid them until enough of the pieces are back together that they don't hurt anymore. You no longer have to fight the urge to say good morning the moment you wake up; going for coffee no longer feels like an inside joke you have to share; going to sleep is no longer something that follows a two hour phone call.

But the bigger stuff, the truly great memories, they never go away. We find ourselves looking back on them with fondness, for comfort, proof that it did happen, that we were once that happy, that for a while at least we felt like we had it all. And sometimes we'll know why it ended and sometimes we wont; and as frustrating as either of these scenarios are, we'll accept that it doesn't really matter.

As long as we get to keep those moments.

It's those moments that make me question whether or not we ever truly stop loving someone. No matter how hurt we feel, no matter how much we feel they hurt us, deep down, if we're honest, we all have those moments, even for those who hurt us most. Sure they could be hidden behind bitterness, buried under blame, locked up behind the walls we let ourselves build as some kind of protection, but they're still there.

You're all still there.

What does the future have in store
that I need the strength
all these trails are supposed to be giving me?

What does my character lack
that it needs these lessons?

Or am I purely being punished?

Tell me the truth
set me free.