Evocative, melancholy songs make me
Think of you, as long forgotten mysteries
Begin almost to make sense.

We could have had it all, even though
We could never have had anything.
Deep down, I belonged to you, even though
I was never yours.

This was always the last hour:
At the end of it, you headed home and
Tried to send me to bed, though I was
Never good at getting there. Perhaps
I was trying to live in your time zone,
To be a small part of your world, somehow.

The words are fewer now.
I know why, yet I know not why.

Would I have given up everything for you?
At the time, I was so casual about it;
Was I able to say it because I loved you
So wholeheartedly, or because I knew
It would never happen?

(Raise a glass for the one that got away.
Put on the radio and imagine that
All of the songs are about her, and that
The inspiration somehow leapt to the minds
Of all those different people from
One small room in my heart.)

I have nothing to say, because
I have everything to say. From more than
A decade away, it all seems so obvious;
Perhaps I am long sighted after all.

What I cannot see, and could never see,
Is where you were. That, surely, is why
The biggest commitment of my life
Was something I said so easily, even though
I meant every word.

Now they are just words, sequences of letters
Giving the crudest likeness of feelings.
They mean nothing; they are no longer said.

02/28/2015

Posted on 03/10/2015
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince