I have been patient in the process of
Forgetting you

After all, Rome didn’t crumble in a day.

I have been waiting for my lungs to finish breathing you out
And for my heart
to stop beating your name,
I have been waiting for the scent of your skin
to stop racing its way through my daydreams,
I’ve been anticipating the day
When your memory dissipates and turns to dust

And yet, it never does.

I have been searching for your antidote
Inside the bodies of all these other boys,
Tracing electric distractions through my skin,
Offering a wilderness I could get lost within

And yet none of it ever compares to the simple experience of
Grocery shopping
on a Tuesday afternoon
with you.

And I am starting to think
That maybe I don’t get to stop missing you.

Maybe you just get to be a tiny piece of me that remains a bit out of place forever –
A piece of my history I cannot resolve,
A door I can never fully close,
A river that rushes through the wasteland of my heart forever more.

A part of me is always going to worry
that I’ll run into you in a café
fifteen years from now,
Pictures of children tucked into your wallet
And a ring leisurely lining your left hand

And you’ll ask me what I have been up to and I’ll have to say,

I moved out of that town that we grew up in,
I took your love letters down off the shelf,
I gave up smoking and drinking and fucking
around
And I fell in love
With somebody else.

I’ll say, I conquered those mountains
That we always meant to climb,
And the view from the top was even better
Than we ever imagined from the ground.

I’ll tell you, living has been strange and chaotic
and intense
ever since you left
And I think that it all turned out for the best

And yet it’s you,
That my mind still wanders off to
On those dreary afternoons where the rain comes
And the oceans quell
And the madness of my thoughts begin to swell

I’ll say,
It’s you
that my heart can’t stop replaying

I’ll say,
It’s you
That I’ve been writing about
For all these years.