long before the tides came in
and swept away our crippled romance;
long before the sun
burned up the technicolor veil on our monochrome love;
long before the heavens shook so hard
that the stars in our eyes had no choice but to fall back to the earth,
i believe we might've had something real.

and i say "might" because,
as you know,
i hate saying things with certainty.
too often,
it just ends in disappointment.

so yes,
i believe we might've had something real because,
despite all of the warning signs
forecasting our untimely demise,
you never once called me on the phone without a voice full of hope.

despite all of the monsters dragging us down
(you know the ones;
they'd hide behind my eyes
and in the corner of your brain),
you never once looked at me without a gaze of euphoria.

(i'm not a drug, though, and perhaps i should've realized that a bit sooner. maybe i could have left the battlefield without tripping over so many corpses).

to this day,
i don't really know what you saw in me
(or if you saw anything at all).
all i know is that whatever blissful light floated in the empty space between us
was bound to become corrupted by darkness,
even from the start.

still,
i stayed.
i let you feed me adoration in heavy spoonfuls,
as though i was the last lively flower in a barren field,
and you the lucky honeybee.

(i forgot, however, about the sting).

i was tired,
but i could see in your face that you never would be.

(i could also see what you'd become were i to leave -- an empty, sad shadow. nothing but carrion in a world of vultures).

i want you to know that,
at times,
i did love you.
on some days, i'd see your face and my aching heart would spring to life.
on some days, i thought i might actually be happy spending an eternity with you.

(perhaps, in a sense, i did. maybe ours was just an eternity shorter than most).

sometimes i regret not trying harder.
not for my sake, but for yours.
there are times when i try to convince myself
that you're doing just fine on your own,
that you don't need me,
that you found bigger, brighter flowers
in a field not so barren.

but then i remember the look in your eyes
on that gray afternoon in september
when you saw me packing my things
and it hit you,
like an oncoming train,
that i was leaving.

(i imagine that we both looked very much like ghosts that day,
drained of all the life once inside us).

i remember how,
for a while,
you didn't speak,
too choked up by tears.

(when you finally did say something, the voice wasn't yours. it was small and defeated and terribly confused).

i remember seeing the monsters take over again,
viciously seizing control in a manner very similar to how i imagine they had before we met.

and now, whenever i find myself thinking about you,
the first thought is always the same.

i wonder if, were i to see you walking down the street, i would recognize you, or if maybe the monsters have already made you into something else -- a man unrecognizable.

so i try not to think about you.
not too much, anyway.

every now and then, though,
your memory creeps in,
right behind my eyes,
where my monsters used to be.

and i can't help but imagine that when you think of me,
my memory climbs out from the corner of your brain,
where your monsters were.

i realize now, with certainty, that what we had was real.

but just because something is real doesn't mean it's beautiful.

(a.m.)