Sometimes when I think of you, I only feel an overwhelming sense of love.
For all those little things that meant so much, that showed you cared.
That thoughtful, tender heart that saw into and beyond.
But it doesn’t take much for memories to come and rebalance my rose-tinted view.

Sometimes when I think of you, I just want to cry, the sadness overwhelming. Sometimes for me, often for you.
I think of all the things that formed you, experiences beyond your control. Those things that have given you a cavalier attitude to the should-be serious.
How did you cope?
I can see why you wrapped yourself up this way, pulling that which you could control into a tight sphere around yourself.
Your need to control.
And when I think of all that, I don’t cry for me at all.
And I know you would hate that. The thought of any pity repulsive and rejected.

But it’s more than that, it is overwhelming love.
I love the person that you are underneath that,
The little boy inside who still catches butterflies on the tips of his fingers to release outside and makes friends with the rabbits and magpies.
The man that cries at the fictional plight.
That tender hearted soul who loves and cares so deeply it hurts. Too deeply to feel, better to drown it out.
Better to throw yourself from planes, surrender to the water, hurtle forwards at 140ks per hour.
Better to drink until it’s numb, take whatever substance is on offer to stem the tide of thoughts that would otherwise bleed out, leaving you weak and vulnerable.

But these things make up a part of you too.
You can’t love parts of a person, you take the whole thing. The completed package.
For all your cracks and bruises I loved you too.
But my bandaids increasingly proved useless
And your cracks were catching.

One man, you said, you wrote.
Completely separated from his world.
Just one man.