You were never sure if it was the light in the room
but you told me;
You did not even need to squint to see a 12 year old boy.
And I could breathe then.
And only then.
At 22.

I read how you were struck off
for professional misconduct.
But it was just the right amount of intimacy
I needed to feel close.
I had no one.

You took my payment one month in advance.
I arrived early for every session
because I had nothing else to do.
Loitering on the doorstep.
You recorded our sessions, making tentative notes,
never at the expense of eye contact.
Lightly commenting how my feet dangled from the arm chair.
Unlikely I would grow much more-
you left your tone open for my interpretation,
like my growing, or not growing,
was neither here nor there.

What if I bumped into her in a queue but we weren't ever meant to cross paths?
What if she told you she would have been on time for meeting you if it wasn't for that short guy who tripped over his own shoelaces and then proceeded to drop his change?
What if that was all that was needed to break the ice, tension shifting, a light hearted swipe at men's uselessness, while snaking your arm around her waist and kissing her firmly on the mouth. ''Men, who needs them, huh'', she is yours, she is putty in your hands.
She replies, ''Not us, baby, not us''.
I am long out of sight but this is what I overhear.

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.

Sometimes he let his eyes rest on hers, it needn't have been painful,
but it strangely was.
He broke a lifetime of avoiding eye contact to show her.
She was worth overcoming obstacles for.

Today,
I saw a picture of
her.
Shes hardly aged a day,
she almost looked younger,
in fact.
I don't know how that would even be possible,
but I am a fine one to defy what seems possible or not!

And she likes men
and men alone.
Like I wasn't always a man anyway..

Like that time she pulled me towards her on cue
at the cinema,
And I ran all the way home,
elated.
Not wanting to think too much
about why.
But knowing deep down as many have,
many a time,
as many will say they always knew,
deep down.