My life
Is leaving you behind.
You, in that little town,
Me, being tugged and stretched
To fill an enormous world.
When I am across the ocean
When I live alone and leave everything behind
What then,
For you?
My life is leaving you behind.
But I can't.
I shouldn't still love you.
I shouldn't still wish for you.
And sometimes I don't...
But you have something of me.
I can't explain it.
There are new loves.
There are better loves.
But you are the background.
You are the foundation.
You're in the air,
You're on my skin
And you would never even touch it.
But somehow you still own it,
Every inch,
And I know what grief it will be
To see you grow up and fall in love
With someone else.
I know that to be near you forever
I will have to endure
So much more of that,
And on my weak days I wonder
Why everybody else gets a whole chance.
You, in that little town.
We don't belong to each other anymore.
But I will always belong to you.
I know there will be days
On London's cobblestone streets
That I will be unable to forget your face,
That I will worry and wish for you,
And I wish I didn't know
That I'll love you until the day I die.
I wish I didn't know
I'll be writing you poems when we're old and gray
And married to other people.
But I do.
I know it.
At the end of the day,
When I am stripped of everything
You remain
And that is the most comforting,
Devastating thing
I know about myself.