None of this is real: it’s all fiction,
Written to entertain you, and
To delight your open heart.

This hand, holding this pen, is a mere
Figment of your imagination;
When you forget it, it disappears, along
With the words it purports to write.

So many feelings about so many
Fantasies, created by or for you,
Fill your heart and your mind and
Your life that there is no room for
Inconvenient realities like me.

In a way, I wish I could have been
Safe: instead, I was doomed to have
Feelings about you, or at least about
The you of my imagination, and so
I was dangerously unpredictable.

I’m just as guilty as you are, you know:
My pain derives as much from
The shards of shattered illusions as
From the sting of rejection.

Still I know not whether you really
Have changed, or whether the only
Difference is how I see you; if
The you for whom I had such feelings
Has ceased to be, or if she was ever
Really there at all.

Once again, my Betjemanesque tendency
To imagine lives behind pretty pictures
At the expense of real life has been
My undoing. I fear you are even further
Along that path than I am.

You will never return to me, I know,
But I hope that, one day, you will
Find your way back to reality.

09/04/2013

Posted on 10/20/2013
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