I saw you in the supermarket today
Safely hidden from your sight
By a pile of soap on display
Not the brand you buy
I saw you pick up
The cheese I used to like
For my breakfast
And put it down, like hot coal
And I knew then
That you still thought of me
When your brain was
On autopilot
When you heard our song
And smiled that sad little smile
Writ with regret and memory
When lying in your lover’s arms
Your body still adjusting
To a warmth that isn’t familiar
Not the way it used to be
I know this
Because I do it too
When my lover kisses me
It is foreign and new
And pushes me off kilter
Thinking of you
I still pick up eggs on the way home
And my lover is a vegetarian
When my mind wanders
It wonders if you sometimes
Think of me
When you can’t sleep
At 2:56 am, restless
When you water the plants
We planted together
When you see the little pieces of us
Still standing in the universe
Even though we fell apart
When did we get so afraid
Of love
Of life
Of everything in between
When did we start fearing
Endings so much
That we ran away from
Every chance to begin
That we tasted the bitter ashes
Of failure and finality
Before we could sip from
The honey of hope
When did we get so jaded
That we were so sure
Things wouldn’t work
That we never even tried
Greys colouring over blooming hues
Refusing to believe in good
And I want to tell you
That I’m sorry
For never giving us a chance
For dooming everything
Before it could ever start
And crushing fresh buds
Under the heel of my stubborn belief
My love, you deserved better
Than another heartbreak
But perhaps the universe
Works in its own ways
You look up and catch my eye
And a brief smile is all we share
Before you pick up a brand of cheese
I do not recognise
And I pick up the tofu
You would never eat
And we walk away,
To return to new homes, new arms
All I can do now
Is hope you are happy
Because I think I am
There’s this soft contentment
Replacing the numb exhaustion
That lay in the wake of my bitter anger
I am learning
To let the past lie
To look forward instead of back
All the things you tried to teach me
That I was too stubborn to learn then
Are healing me now
And I pray you haven’t forgotten
How to hope and love
Though I might have taught you to
Distrust hope and shun it
Because dreams and disappointment
Were two sides of a coin
Too easy to flip
And we were both right,
Just on two polar ends
Refusing to budge, refusing to see
Any middle ground
That now paves the path
I walk on
Littered with lessons from
Past mistakes
Perhaps one day
I will see you on it
And we will smile at
Our previous selves,
Fighting in futility
While we will walk on
Together or otherwise
To learn from fresh mistakes
Until our destinies pull us apart again.
-Gautami.
This is beautiful.
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