i know
you will be all consuming,
there’s butterflies
and my hearts racing.
i forgot what it felt like,
having a crush.
there’s that fine line
not knowing what will become of us,
it could be nothing
or it could be everything.
you could become everything.
everything to me.
–this all consuming crush, will my heart take it.
times moved on, and i’m here forgetting. memories blur, i can’t remember the sound of your laugh, the way you said my name, and the way my heart felt when i was with you. darling i’ve been left with only sadness for a long time, longer than i’d care to admit. i never knew how overwhelming it could be, how it comes in waves. how heartbreaking it is to live with it. i will have loved you for ten years. nearly a third of my life. and in that time i’ve been half in love, half heartbreak. i never knew how much joy you’d bring, you would always light up the room, everyone loved you and i would always want to be the one to make you laugh. and i never realised when you’d leave how much sadness it would bring. i never knew it would linger, that it would become a part of me. i know i never told you a lot of things, all the things i should have told you. i should have told you – you were my first love, the one that felt real. i never imagined that you’d become a stranger, someone i’d no longer know. i miss you, yet now i don’t know now if i could ever just be your friend. maybe this distance between us was a blessing, but darling it feels like a curse. maybe we weren’t meant to withstand the test of time. maybe we weren’t meant to be together, but god i regret a lot of things when it comes to you and i’d go back in a heartbeat, for just more time with you.
–heartbreak season
i became so lonely living with heartbreak. i don’t know when we became strangers, it’s been a year since i last heard from you. there was no reply, you left me on read. darling you keep breaking my heart. what happened to us, we used to be inseparable. i remember the last time i saw you, we were at our coffee spot. i fear that maybe have been the last time. there has been so many times i wanted to pick up the phone and call you just to hear your voice, when did we fade from each others lives. there’s this dream i keep having, it always comes back to you. in the dream we’re happy, it’s a life we could’ve had, if only i could’ve told you how i felt. we’re there at the beginning, eighteen and doe-eyed, believing we had all the time in the world. but somehow time caught up to us, and i don’t know where it went. we were so young and there was so much more i wanted. i would never not want you. in the dream you smiled at me like i’m everything you ever wanted and i can almost believe it’s real and not a dream blended within memories. how cruel to forget what was once true and the illusion of a broken heart. i wish i could have made you happy. i wish i could have looked you in the eye and told you i loved you, that those years together were some of the best of me. without you darling life is not the same, colours became faded, there’s this sadness i can’t shake. maybe that’s the regret in the pit of my stomach. i can’t blame you for falling in love with another, what could i have given you, she was able to love you when i couldn’t but believe me when i say not telling you how i felt was the biggest heartbreak of my life.
–maybe this was all i was going to get from loving you, the inevitable heartbreak.
you should have told her,
that she gave you butterflies
and made your palms sweaty
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
that her voice was the one
you’d hear in a crowded room.
that you wanted to listen to that laugh
for the rest of your life.
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
that when she kissed your cheek
for the first time, it fixed your
broken heart and re-
awakened your soul.
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
that night you were scared.
that to love her,
would mean you’d be in ruin.
you couldn’t face what it would mean
if she didn’t love you.
you were scared that eventually after
all this time to listen to your heart
you’d loose her and her love.
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
outside on that cold january night
that she was worth the risk of heartbreak.
that looking into her eyes hoping
she wouldn’t see past your facade,
that the truth was beating out of your chest.
you should have told her the truth
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
that if you kissed her it wouldn’t
be a meaningless kiss.
it would always be more than that.
she’d always mean more than that.
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
you were falling in love
before she fell for
someone else.
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
that seeing her with someone
else was slowly breaking your heart.
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
that you could be that
person she wanted.
that you’d love her forever.
but you didn’t.
you should have told her,
to stay.
that when she left you’d be
missing half of yourself,
you’d only be half whole.
but you didn’t.
i should have told you,
i loved you
but i didn’t.
– things i should have told you, but didn’t.
i never knew falling in love with you would be like slipping on my favourite sweater in autumn, cozying up near the fire in winter, darling you were a sunrise. there was never that moment of realisation, i just knew in my bones that i’ll love you for a lifetime. i was eighteen when we met, heartbroken and scared to love again but you came into my life and loving you became effortless, almost like breathing and i didn’t realise i was in love until it was too late. sometimes i wish i could go back to the beginning and savour those moments, for me five years, 1826 days were simply not enough, i could never have enough time with you darling, i would always wanted more. but times a funny thing and years later you still have a piece of my heart and i so desperately want to call you and hear your voice, just to hold you in my arms, tell you that i miss you. there were so many drunken nights, too many ‘almost’ that still plague my heart. three years later i’m still here, with a broken heart still wanting you. i should have told you i was in love with you. fuck i should have kissed you that night outside the bar. i should have done a lot of things differently when it came to you. i was scared you wouldn’t feel the same, that i made it all up in my head because how could someone love me. our story changed that night, maybe you thought i didn’t love you and god how wrong you were. maybe it’s too early, maybe i’m too young and i shouldn’t say this but darling you were the love of my life and the grief that came when watching you love someone who wasn’t me was haunting. like falling in love with you, losing you didn’t happen all at once, it was painfully slow watching fall in love with another knowing i missed my chance. i remember the times where i would have you in my arms, it felt like home, and in my heart i know i will never walk through that door again. i can never go home to you.
– eight years later and all i want is to go home.
we sat in a quiet coffee shop, with so much history between us. the years had not been kind on my heart darling, it was too late to tell you how much i cared, how much i loved you, that i’d loved you for years. so i did the only thing i could do, i sat and listened to your life, the one i wasn’t apart of anymore and all i wanted to do was tell you how much i missed you. that the years hadn’t changed my feelings, and god i wish they did. i wanted to tell you, you were the love of my life but you’d had found the love of yours and you were finally happy, you talked about her, your home and wanting to start a family. my broken heart was screaming just tell her because maybe she loved you too and i don’t doubt she did, but it was a familiar type of love, it was not the same. so i just listened to your stories, hoping it would never end because i hated watching you leave over and over again, never knowing if you’d come back. as we left the empty coffee shops, mugs on the table, all i could hear in the silence was the sound of my heart. i hugged you hoping i could pour everything into this one moment. so i could let it be because i didn’t know if those moments would be all we had. i never knew if it would be the last time i saw you. maybe this was all i was going to get from loving you, being left heartbroken.
–the years hadn’t changed my feelings, but loving you hurt.
i remember it vividly the day i met you. it was the summer time, i walked right through the door not knowing what to expect but then i saw you, you were like sunshine on a rainy day. darling you brightened my heart from being weathered in a constant storm. you smiled at me and i knew i was going to love you from the day i met you. i’d been so heartbroken my dear, but slowly with you that started to disappear. there was this playfulness you brought and i was so curious to figure your heart. you intrigued me. but was i a fool to think you could have loved me too? because there we times i almost allowed myself to believe, in-between the tender touches, lingering hugs, meaningful glances. i never knew when you said ‘ i love you’ our time was gong to run out. you said you weren’t going to leave. i never knew the end was coming, i didn’t think you were going to leave me so soon. the truth is i could spend all my life with you and it would never be enough. i would always want more. i always want more time with you.
– my heart followed you out the door.
as we sat in ‘our’ little coffee shop, on the corner, over looking the gardens with passers by walking down the street. i turned to look at you and i was entranced in a memory, deja vu washed over me. it had been so long since we’d been here, together. it had been so long since i saw you last. we were sat opposite each other like we used too, but now there was this noticeable distance between us, made up from months apart and maybe the realisation that i had loved you as more than a friend. i wanted to tell you that it had been a long year without you darling. i hated not being in your life, i hated you leaving, i hated the missed chances but most of all i hated the hollow feeling in my heart. i still couldn’t believe that you were here with me, in the hear and now, it felt foreign, almost like a dream. you still made my palm sweaty and my heart race. the year had been so long yet i was still in love with you and i couldn’t keep lying to myself. there was so much i wanted to say, so much i needed to confess but you were happy so i exhaled and smiled, listened to your stories about your travels and hoped that it would be enough to mend my broken heart. i hoped it would be enough to move on, to let you go.
–if only i could have told you i was in love with you as winter turned to spring.
i saw you in the supermarket, this time it wasn’t a dream. there were so many times i wanted to see you, so many times i wanted to reach out just to ask you how you’ve been. tell you that i miss you. there was so many things i wanted to tell you, so many things i should have told you.
but there you were, stood at the checkout, i didn’t see you first but i saw her and my heart i knew you there, and seconds later you were by her side. i don’t think you saw me, i’m grateful you didn’t. i stoped for a second, i held my breath and my heart didn’t break at the sight of you two, maybe i had finally let you go. i did feel sad, i think i always will with missed opportunities, especially when it comes to you. i allowed myself to look just for a moment, you hadn’t changed but then again i couldn’t say that, two years past and at first it felt like an eternity. isn’t it sad that we lost touch but i couldn’t have loved you like this when you loved her. and i always will say this, i’m glad you’re happy, you deserve it. i loved you for too long without saying anything so i can’t blame you for loving another.
as i was leaving i expected you to be gone. i didn’t have to hold my breath, my heart went back to normal. yet there you were walking towards the flowers, towards her, your home. i took one last look and walked towards the exit hoping my heart would do the same.
–supermarket checkouts, darling i’d like to by a new heart.
it’s been too long,
the years have taken
it tole on this
withered heart.
am i allowed to
say i still miss you?
or has too much
time passed?
is it cruel to wish
that you feel the same.
that sometimes i hope
you think of me,
and all we used to be.
i wish things were
different.
i wish i didn’t feel
like this.
i wish i could leave
you in the past.
but know a part of me
will always be here
loving you in
these pages.
–just in case….
tash writes 