I’ve accepted
The feelings of betrayal;
Absorbed the illness
Of loss of faith:
You turned away.
It doesn’t hurt
As much
If at all,
To see you anymore.
It feels as if
I’m viewing fragments
Of a memory
Of a memory,
Of a failure,
Of a lesson.
It’s still hard to trust
You made that even harder;
Forever is not a word
I care to use again.
It’s been strange
navigating the passage
Between who I was
Who I am
And who you tried to make me.
I don’t think I can forgive you
But I know I can’t stop the love
That occupies a dark corner of me
From urging fondness and care;
Still, I do not yearn for you
Any longer.
The last dreams I had
With you haunting me:
You did not care for my company,
And it served as a reminder
Of the last years we spent together.
You alone, and I a placeholder;
Only kept around out of fear
Of crushing loneliness, of the unknown.
A symbol of the inevitable.
I have begun to feel again,
A fondness for another.
It is a lightness I have not felt
In a long long while.
She is beautiful,
She kind,
She is strong.
It is a challenge,
more difficult than before,
To let love grow,
Because of the fear you planted
Within me.
I have rejected the fear, mostly.
I have charged onward with chest open,
Heart exposed.
Softness, kindness, gentleness;
Tender
As I am.
Still,
It is hard
To completely shake
The fear.
