I didn’t think I’d be affected,
I thought I could just be aware,
When she left me for another man
I thought I could sit and stare,
Could sit and stare as he held her hand
Could stare as he touched her knee,
And not be moved when another man
Roamed over my territory.

We’d been together forever
But things had fallen apart,
There’d been a change in the weather
A canker, aimed at the heart,
The words we said became twisted,
We fired our arrows of pain,
And all our wrongs became listed
Our pleas were met with disdain.

I slept alone in the parlour,
She slept alone in the bed,
And life itself became harder
Despite that little was said,
She started seeing her friends alone
While I got on with my life,
A lonely desert became our home
No place for husband or wife.

And that was when she had met him,
The man who would take my place,
She laughed with him as she’d laughed with me
Back when, in my memory’s trace,
The pain would hit as I’d sit and stare
When she balanced, and sat on his knee,
While running her fingers through his hair,
She never did that with me!

She’d never done that, or a dozen things
That she suddenly started to do,
But like a bird that had found its wings
She suddenly woke, and flew,
That’s when I woke to the simple truth
That she’d never been right with me,
I walked away from the pain that day
And said, ‘I’m setting you free!’

David Lewis Paget