Bygones
Convincing yourself you’re complete
A nostalgia for what you think never was,
memories present themselves now
in the themes of true loves lost
and childhoods gone, yet
those years were still
soaked in sunshine sparkling
in the spokes of bicycle wheels
and in the surface of the lake in summer
when you swam into his sphere
In their presence, they were
exactly what you wanted them to be
because you didn’t know any different
What was presented to you —
blessed with a lack of longing
for what you would lose — was perfect
It is through the lens, cracked and chipped
of a life lived long and disconnected
that you see your past as broken
and your past loves and hours —
each day a lifetime — as only loss
But it is clear: when you merged
on midnight drives with the man
who became your best friend,
falling asleep on his right arm
as you and he rolled through the night
like the fog off the pastures under the moon,
it was magic,
and seasons before, it is true
that when bare feet dangled from tanned legs
as you perched on a branch,
umbrellaed under the stretching boughs
of a great magnolia, surrounded
by green and copper-turned leaves
and the sour sweet scent of their pale blooms,
you turned one with the tree
Those things happened,
and they were perfect,
and they were good,
and you were whole
These things you now tell yourself
to lose the ache of it not all being
how you you wanted it to go
