I know it’s over, I really do. I know it has been for quite some time. It’s over, yet my heart still feels you. You are a memory to me now, but my mind still thinks of you. What we had was finished long ago—yet the words will not stop flowing.
Change of Heart
You were faultless
I was flawed,
I was lesser
yet you
gave more.
Now with time,
I find you
on my mind—
Perhaps I loved you,
after all.
Reasons
I wish I knew why he left. What his reasons were. Why he changed his mind.
For all these years, I have turned it over in my head—all the possibilities—yet none of them make any sense.
And then I think, perhaps it was because he never loved me. But that makes the least sense of all.
All There Was
My greatest lesson learnt,
you were mine until you weren’t.
It was you who taught me so,
the grace in letting go.
The time we had was all—
there was not a moment more.
Pen Portrait
She doesn’t keep time,
so she stopped wearing watches.
Her promise won’t bind,
so no one holds her to them.
She lives in the past,
so her present never catches—
Her thoughts do not last,
so her pen must tattoo them.
Musical Chairs
When the music stood still, I was standing at an empty chair.
I could feel you smiling behind me. (We sense these things while dreaming.)
Your hands were on my shoulders, your kisses against my neck.
Then from somewhere, the music of a piano as she sings to Mozart, no one will ever know me the way you do.
Tell Me
Tell me if you ever cared,
if a single thought
for me was spared.
Tell me when you lie in bed,
do you think of something
I once said.
Tell me if you hurt at all,
when someone says
my name with yours.
It may have been so long ago,
but I would give
the world to know.
Beach Ball
Do you know that feeling? When it’s like you’ve lost something but can’t remember what it was. It’s as though you’re trying so desperately to think of a word but it won’t come to you. You’ve said it a thousand times before and it was always there—right where you left it. But now you can’t recall it. You try and try to make it appear and it almost does, but it never does.
There are times when I think it could surface—when I sense it at the tip of my tongue. When I feel it struggling to burst from my chest like a beach ball that can only be held beneath the water for so long.
I can feel it stirring each time someone hurts me. When I smile at a stranger and they don’t smile back. When I trust someone with a secret and they betray me. When someone I admire tells me I am not good enough.
I don’t know what it is or what I have lost. But I know it was important, I know it once made me happy.
Amends
I wonder if there will be a morning when you’ll wake up missing me. That some incident in your life would have finally taught you the value of my worth. And you will feel a surge of longing, when you remember how I was good to you.
When this day comes I hope you will look for me. I hope you will look with the kind of conviction I’d always hoped for, but never had from you. Because I want to be found. And I hope it will be you—who finds me.
The Most
You may not know
the reason why,
for a time
I wasn’t I.
There was a man
who came and went,
on him every breath
was spent.
I’m sorry I forgot
all else—
it was the most
I ever felt.
History
In the beginning, I wrote to you and you wrote back. For the first time, I had something worth writing about.
Then somewhere during our correspondence, I deviated—and instead of writing to you, I began writing for you. There was so much to say, things I couldn’t tell you and I sensed it was important to put them down somewhere. For inherently, mankind is compelled to record their greatest moments in history and you were mine.
I don’t write to you anymore. Nor do I write for you. But I do write—and every word still aches for you.
The Dream
I saw a dream
long lost to me,
in search of
another’s waking.
It found a shoreline
far away
as the day—
as my heart,
was breaking.
And I sighed and wept
for what could not be—
and for all that could
have been,
For every hope
and every prayer
long drowned
beneath the sea.
I fell to sleep
alone that night,
to the sound
of a distant call.
The faintest whisper
of good-bye—
and the dream
was mine, no more.
Wishing Stars
I still search
for you in crowds,
in empty fields
and soaring clouds.
In city lights
and passing cars,
on winding roads
and wishing stars.
I wonder where
you could be now,
for years I’ve not said
your name out loud.
And longer since
I called you mine—
time has passed
for you and I.
Yet I have learned
to live without,
I do not mind—
I still love you anyhow.
Forever for Now
Stretching out from here to then,
days before us,
came and went.
Someday we will meet again,
for now the end—
of days on end.
Nostalgia for Today
Do you remember what you once said to me?
One day you will be nostalgic for today.
At the time, I couldn’t begin to conceive a future without you—I believed with all my heart we were destined for each other. And in the back of my mind, I always knew I’d feel nostalgic for a moment we shared or a memory we created—but not once, not even for a second—did I imagine it was you I would be nostalgic for.
Poker Face
There was a time I would tell you,
of all that ached inside;
the things I held so sacred,
to all the world I’d hide.
But they became your weapons,
and slowly I have learnt,
the less that is said, the better—
the lesser I’ll be hurt.
Of all you’ve used against me,
the worst has been my words.
There are things I’ll never tell you,
and it is sad to think it so;
the more you come to know me—
the less of me you’ll know.
Crosswords
r /> I write to bring you closer. To imagine your fingers trailing the curve of my spine. To recall how the span of your hands were exactly the width of my hips. And how our bodies would fall into each other like words on a crossword puzzle. I write for the raw ache in my bones when the ink seeps into paper—for the bittersweet sorrow that comes from bringing you back.
Forget Me Not
The choice was once
your choosing,
before losing
became my loss.
I was there in
your forgetting—
until I was forgot.
Melancholy Skies
Three summers passed
of sun-drenched dreams,
of snow white clouds
and you and me.
The warmth of love,
all summer long,
through winter’s chill
we’d carry on.
Each season’s end
began anew,
until the last—
I shared with you.
They gave us years,
though many ago;
the spring cries tears—
the winter, snow.
The Poet
Why do you write? he asked.
So I can take my love for you and give it to the world, I reply.
Because you won’t take it from me.
Almost
Do you see
how I love him true—
it could have been you.
As for you
and your love for she—
it could have been me.
But we were a maybe,
and never a must—
when it should have been us.
He’s Forgotten
Time is to wound
like wound is to suture,
when she was his past
and he is her future.
Perfect
He said to me “You’re perfect,
and I want you to be mine.”
But I felt I wasn’t worthy
and to be perfect, I’ll need time.
I knew it would be worth it,
I could be better if I tried,
then he got tired of waiting—
and I watched my chance go by.
Minefield
If you know a boy with eyes of quiet wonderment, who smiles often and speaks rarely—someone who pays the same respect to words as he would a minefield—who thinks deeply and is endearingly sad—please do not give your heart to him. Even when he gently pleads with you—or clutches your hand with grave earnest—no matter how he tries to convince you, please turn him away. You don’t know him like I know him. You can’t love him like I do.
A Sad Farewell
For all the time I’ve known you,
to the present—now our past;
I know never to forget you;
though regret still pains my heart.
Had I known, I would not have left you,
alone beneath those stars,
on the night when I last saw you,
not knowing it was the last.
Regrets
Timing is irrelevant when two people are meant for each other. It’s what I once believed.
But we met during a time when I was such a mess, when I still had so much to figure out. How could I have known how crucial every word, every action was or how losing you would be something I would always regret?
If only you could have met me now, how different it would be. How much I have changed. How I have grown. I learned so much from all the mistakes I made with you. I just wish I had made them with someone else.
Ode to Sorrow
Her eyes, a closed book,
her heart, a locked door;
she writes melancholy
like she’s lived it before.
She once loved in a way,
you could not understand;
he left her in pieces
and a pen in her hand.
The ode to her sorrow
in the life she has led—
her scratches on paper,
the words they have bled.
Remembering You
The day you left, I went through all my old journals, frantically looking for the first mention of you. Searching for any details I can no longer recall—any morsel of information that may have been lost to my subconscious. The memory of you is fading, a little at a time, and I can feel myself forgetting. I don’t want to forget.
Love’s Paradox
There is a tide that rolls away,
I want to make it stay.
A borrowed book sits on my shelf,
I want it for myself.
There are two old hands
that move this clock,
I want to make them stop.
There is a love you sold to me,
I keep it under lock—
and yet you hold the key.
A Ghost
His voice in this room,
like shadows on walls;
I imagine him on
the other side of the door.
His voice, his hands, his touch,
at the start, the end,
and in the middle.
Strange how it mattered so much,
when now it matters
so little.
Losing You
I used to think I couldn’t go a day without your smile. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back.
Then, that day arrived and it was so damn hard but the next was harder. I knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and I wasn’t going to be okay for a very long time.
Because losing someone isn’t an occasion or an event. It doesn’t just happen once. It happens over and over again. I lose you every time I pick up your favorite coffee mug; whenever that one
song plays on the radio, or when I discover your old t-shirt at the bottom of my laundry pile.
I lose you every time I think of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. I go to bed at night and lose you, when I wish I could tell you about my day. And in the morning, when I wake and reach for the empty space across the sheets, I begin to lose you all over again.
The End
“I don’t know what to say,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she replied, “I know what we are—
and I know what we’re not.”
Encore
Excerpts from
Love & Misadventure
Also by Lang Leav
Available where all
good books are sold
Angels
It happens like this. One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else—closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps because this person carries an angel within them—one sent to you for some higher purpose, to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them—even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering—the reason for their presence will become clear in due time.
Though here is a word of warning—you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn’t to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled, the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.
..................................
It’s so dark right now, I can’t see any light around me.
That’s because the light is coming from you. You can’t see it but everyone else can.
Souls
When two souls fall in love, there is n
othing else but the yearning to be close to the other. The presence that is felt through a hand held, a voice heard, or a smile seen.
Souls do not have calendars or clocks, nor do they understand the notion of time or distance. They only know it feels right to be with one another.
This is the reason why you miss someone so much when they are not there—even if they are only in the very next room. Your soul only feels their absence—it doesn’t realize the separation is temporary.
..................................
Can I ask you something?
Anything.
Why is it every time we say good night, it feels like good-bye?
A Dream
As the Earth began spinning faster and faster, we floated upwards, hands locked tightly together, eyes sad and bewildered. We watched as our faces grew younger and realized the Earth was spinning in reverse, moving us backwards in time.