No More Poetry

 

It's strange
I still have our polaroid in my wallet
As I recall the two photos we took
Utterly disgusted by the first
But suitably pleased with the second
If only you hadn't vehemently disposed of them
And made me feel so small.
Your biggest fear in life is getting attached
And to be honest,
All of us are
Scared

But once in a while
You come across people
Who, in every sense of the phrase,
Make the world go round.
You just know somehow
It's like a thought in the back of your head
Or a stone in the back of your shoe,
It's always there but you learn to ignore it
For you know better.

When did I know?
It's difficult to tell
I did not enjoy Stranger Things
But would anything beat
Falling asleep in your arms?
Or when you ran over from Lion King
And pretended to understand
The equations on my screen
While sitting on my lap
On that uncomfortable wooden chair
Which was clearly meant for one.

When did I know?
When you knocked on wood
While speaking of death
In such a nonchalant way
Not knowing that I'd spent my life
Doing the same.
Or was it sitting outside your class
The day you murdered an innocent plate
Skipping my lunch
Just to get those 5 minutes with you.

When did I know?
Was it wearing my T shirt
While I sprinted down the stairs
Half naked
Just because you wanted me to.
Or when I sneaked into your house
With no clue and no charge
In an unknown city
Just because I could.

Maybe it was the way you ate your prawns
Or the unnecessary overdose of Oreos
How we could never leave your bed most of the time
But only because
There's nowhere we would rather be.
I saw a ghost of me in you
Lonely but independent,
Nerdy but confident,
Casual but anxious,
Happy but sad.
Some mysterious stroke of luck
Had put the perfect woman
The perfect companion
The near-perfect love
Just Two floors
Above my unknowing head.

But I also remember
Not being able to kiss you goodbye
As you waited for an Uber
Or hold your hand anywhere
In fear of catching something
You couldn't sanitise for.
How many times did you
Ditch me without rhyme or reason
As I desperately wrote paragraphs
In hope of wooing you back?
How many times
Did you pretend we had nothing
When all the signs were pointing towards The contrary?

Maybe that's why I gave up on us
When our photo landed in the bin
It only reminded me
That I had to earn my place in your life
While you already had one in mine.
That's when I knew
That it would end pretty soon
I've spent my whole life convincing people
To keep me around
And I couldn't force myself
To do it all over again.

It scared me how easily
You removed people from your life
Like they meant
Absolutely nothing at all.
It scared me how easily
You stopped talking to me
I couldn't rely on you
To have a moment of weakness
Or slip up ever so little.
It was always
Radio Silence
Nothing less, nothing more.

It scared me that one day
Any day
I would have to say a goodbye
Knowing fully well that this would be
The last one.
Maybe that moment's come and gone
And I'm a happier person
When I'm not relying on someone else
To stick around in my life.

"You can't depend on anyone Bojack"
A wise person once said.
Holding on to you was like grasping air,
Or catching rain,
In my hands for a brief moment
And gone the next.

They say you know you're out of love
When you no longer have words to say.
I'll always cherish what we had
And I'd want nothing but your happiness.
But unfortunately
No matter How hard I try
I can't say or write anything any more.
It just seems like
Ultimately
I have no more poetry
left for you.