Sometimes I can't help but take a moment
and picture how we might've been different today
if on that early October day,
I hadn't decided to walk away.

I can't help but question
what we'd be like now
if instead,
I had chosen to stay.

As I lie awake at night
or even sit outside
in broad daylight,
the toxic thoughts penetrate my mind,
and they never fail
to take me back
to that late-September night.

I see me sitting next to you,
your arm around mine,
nervous glances being exchanged
in the quiet of an otherwise
chaotic night.

Next I'm forced to relive
our innocent goodbye,
when you walked me to the gate
and said, "Goodnight."

Then time flashes forward
to the day everything changed,
when I found out the reason
you'd been acting so strange.

I can't forget hearing
her three-syllable name.
I swear I nearly went insane.

I see the pain in my eyes as a single drop
begins the seemingly unending river of tears,
streaming from the same eyes you used to gaze into
and down past the lips you never got a chance to kiss.

I see myself cutting you out of my life,
not slowly, but all at once,
like ripping off a bandage
because I'd foolishly thought
that would lessen the pain.

I listen to myself saying "no" to you
when, for the past two months,
I would've given anything for you to ask me
so I could've finally said "yes."

I see all of this over and over again,
unable to stop it,
unable to remind myself
that I made the right choice
in leaving you.

All I can picture is the future I lost,
more vividly than I can see
the world right in front of me.

All I can imagine is this:

Your sweaty palm nervously inching toward mine.
My face blushing with anticipation as our hands become entwined.

Wrapping our arms around each other just to stay warm
and cuddling beside the fire in the midst of a snow storm.

The two of us slow-dancing in the middle of the pouring rain
because when you're in love, who cares if you look insane?

Tears streaming down my face as I cry on your shoulder;
my best friend and I are fighting, but you promise it'll be over.

Kissing at a red light that soon fades to green,
cars honking at us because they don't know what it means
to have fallen for someone outside of your dreams
and into his arms like a movie scene.

...that is what I see.

I imagine us doing all the things
we never got to do,
and I almost hate myself
for killing my own chance
at happiness with you.

But then I close my eyes
and block it all out.

All the moments,
the memories,
the what-ifs,
they're gone.

All I see is complete and total darkness.

But no matter how tightly I close my eyes,
I'll never be able to make the thought of you
into merely a memory.

No matter how badly I wish to move on,
our pasts will always be intertwined,
and we will be linked indefinitely.

And nothing I do will ever change the reality
that you'll forever be much more than a memory
to me.