It’s a long way to go:
Exchanging your idyll for his,
A rough crossing away in
A land we knew about
For all the wrong reasons.

But the wind of wanderlust
Was in your sails, a force
Stronger even than the gravity
Of the world you always
Longed to inhabit.

The Sun sets and rises later
As you move west; it takes
Its time to shorten shadows,
To reach the part of morning
That forms honorary afternoon.
Perhaps that is where you find
Home now, in the spaces left
As daytime shifts.

Or maybe none of this matters.
Maybe you did merely
Get what you came for,
The holy trinity that I could
Never have provided,
The life sentence that I know
I could never have served.

With bitterness and cynicism
I still manage to wish you
Well, just as you did even
Through hurt and disappointment.

It is better this way, I tell
Myself: your ship has sailed,
And my heart is not aboard,
Stowing away like a plague rat.

All I have lost is to
The west, it seems, but there will be
No sunset chasing for me:
I will remain on this quiet shore,
Leaving them, and you,
In my blissful absence.

06/08/2019

Posted on 06/11/2019
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