Time
Doesn't
Pass
Like
It
Used
To

Scars
Don't
Fade
Like
Before

I have always loved you.

I imagine us 30 years down the road.
I am massaging your shoulders,
relieving knots.
Life gets me in knots too.

I've put the kettle on
I have my own key now so I come and go as I please
like the old friend I've become.
I feed your cat when you go away at weekends.

Smelling your pillow
Remembering you at 40.
Your dressing table
as I pictured it.

I have my own family now
but I met you 10 years before I met my wife.
I rode the wave of your smile,
came crashing down
the day you announced you'd met someone,
holding out for the real thing.

For; I was just a boy,
what could I deliver apart from newspapers
and the odd dodgy innuendos? you laughed at
tossing your hair.
Humouring me
but,
Never letting on that you cared.

I slip away every second night
when the second hand rests between the 8 and the 9
and it is quarter to 10.
I am on my way to see you.
We play cards and toast a drink into midnight.
Sometimes I reach for your delicately aged hand
twiddling with your rings,
knowing mine would have been the sparkly one.
But not a patch on you.

We lock eyes for around a minute,
My throat is dry.
Telepathically I tell you
I have always loved you.
Whether you are 45 or 75
I will always love you.

On a day—alack the day!—
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseen ‘gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!
Do not call it sin in me
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom e’en Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiop were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

the way we used to walk together
our feet would touch the ground at synchronized times
and your hand clasped against mine ever so tight
occasionally rubbing your thumb against the back of my hand

the words you used to say to me
that are stuck in my mind
are unforgettable
maybe as unforgettable as your baby blue eyes

the sound of heartbreak you left on my answering machine
when I finally wanted to stop it all
because of her, because of you, because of me
it made me break down and think about all of these things

all these things that meant so little at the time
but are now memories
stuck on repeat
in my mind

all these little things that you did
when you cared
and I cared
and we were in love

but there's nothing left of these little things
because we walked away from what made us happy
and we walked away from true love