I feel you. I try to let go and realise I’m not holding on. And I wonder why you’re still with me. I’ve never known a person so deeply entwined. I loved you so much. Lingering like a ghost. We fucked things up so amazingly well. Was I in love with what I thought we could have been that I failed to see what we had? If only we could have been brave. Maybe it wasn’t our time but refused to leave. Maybe I didn’t give you room to be who you needed to be. Maybe you didn’t know who that was.
Two people morphing into a projected sense of our lover’s ideal but didn’t stop to ask what that was. I’m not sure what the hardest part is, the hurt from fading the imaginary what could have been or removing the facade of who we became. It all feels like such a waste of something so beautiful. But I fear that’s a part of the imaginary what could have been. We did have beautiful moments. Cracks in the mask we wore, allowing our freedom to shine through; strangers dancing in a costume we believed in. I no longer know what’s real. Other than these feelings and these tears. This hurt. This longing.
The pain of seeing my reflection in your eyes, forcing me to see what I so lovingly tried to justify with resentment or blame. I see you. Perhaps more than you knew of yourself. And I wonder if my fears draped the costume on your back. So many others in the frame of our portrait that we were no longer in view, And now our picture, torn down the middle and floating in the sea with our wrecked ship, separate, has a chance to fully develop. I can imagine how yours looks, your strength and beauty and who you will become. Are becoming. And I look but fail to see my face and I cry. I don’t want to accept the feeling I’ve felt for so long. But it’s here and it’s unavoidable.
And I realise maybe I am holding on after all. The imaginary what could have been. And the thought of letting go, the process of that is one of the biggest hurts I’ve had to face. And I am reminded. What am I letting go of? And I guess only time will answer that for me. And maybe I’ll never know.