Aftermath
You leave.
But,
once you’re out the door,
you realise you’ve left everything.
You’re nothing
on your own.
You remember:
smiles and sunshine,
love and laughter,
hugs and hateful words,
kisses and kicks and
pushing and punching and patronising and pretending and
playing, right? Just playing —
a little harmless fun.
You go back.
But,
once you’re back
in smiles and sunshine,
love and laughter,
you’re playing
a rigged game, fighting
a losing battle
against an enemy you love
more than life.
And you don’t know
how to get out,
how to get away,
how to let go.
But you do.
And then, once it’s over, it fades.
It fades away until it doesn’t really feel like much at all
and you wonder if it was as bad as you thought
and maybe, just maybe, you left too soon.
You grieve.
Then,
when you’ve let it all go,
you realise: you’ve lost everything
you could measure, and nothing
of worth.
