If I Knew Then

After our reunion in April, it took maybe two weeks for me to put something on paper that I liked. This was my first new poem in nearly a decade.

IF I KNEW THEN

What’s my starting line?
I have so many to choose from. I might as well just dive right in.
My memory ain’t what it used to be
so if I repeat a phrase or forget
it’s because there’s just too much to remember
and then sometimes I forget everything.
Who was that?
Who am I?
I don’t remember anything.
I went from everything being important
to nothing having any importance. Or is it the other way around?
My life was easier these last years without you.
But it was also boring and meaningless,
mindless and mediocre.
I was living simply but now
I simply choke on the word.
I don’t have enough time to deal with
all the life you’ve awakened in me by reappearing.
I wait and I wait and everyday
I wait is another day without you.

I pontificate on the past for the first time
in a long time.
Those timeless poems track my mistakes,
how I distanced myself from my feelings
by writing them down instead of actually
speaking my Shakespearean fantasies.
I wonder who is this child who knew so much
and when will I ever learn?
I later tried to write like that for her and I couldn’t.
Maybe because that time I acted on my feelings.
I never tried to write like that for him.
Maybe because that time I had nothing to act on.
If I write this will it bring you back?
There’s no way you can be over me.
“When were you under me?”

“The world is too much with us.”
That’s all I ever believed in,
love, our most powerful weapon.
Could we really bring the world to an end?
Or would we just redefine everything
the world has already defined?
Does what we have go beyond the mortal definitions
of loyalty and devotion and dedicate
a whole new existence to what we are?
What we could become?
I think I can be the person I want to be
with you.
I think you can be the person to
fix me.
But you just let me go
without a fight,
without a word,
without telling me
how you felt,
how you knew I felt.
Now I’m left to do the finding on my own
to find you,
to find what I know is here
hidden and waiting.

I need a good night’s sleep.
But something keeps me awake.
A hunger.
I never wanted to resurrect these feelings.
Or maybe I did,
just not on these terms.
But that’s my own fault
for letting go before,
for saying no before,
or at least not saying yes.
I stopped believing, somewhere stopped knowing
and started doubting everything I was so sure of.
When you’re not with me I worry.
I worry that I’m going to lose you.
I wonder what I’ve done this time.
And each time
it could be anything I do.
For being romantic.
For being impatient.
For knowing what I want.
For being a mystery.
For looking for something that’s wrong.
For wanting to taste the way you smell.
For wanting everything.
For wanting.
For raising the level of my thoughts to a screeching siren.

I ask too many questions
and continue to answer with more questions
until I forget what I’m even in search of.
I thought you knew.
I thought you believed.
That’s what I thought it took me so long to discover.
And now I don’t know what to believe
as I find myself
editing myself until even I don’t recognize
my own words.