This town holds the burdens of our secrets.

I thought of you tonight, acknowledged
for the first time in months that there's
still a dull ache behind my sternum -
it's barely there, I've ignored its presence,
keeping it from hindering my ability to move on.

You haven't spoken to me in over a year.

I know, I know, that's no excuse,
anyone would ask why I haven't done the same,
and I admit, it's my fault too,
but you were always the older one,
a guardian over me.

How often did I ask you to protect me,
leaning on your understanding,
pleading for you to hold me while I
ran through a hazy forest of doubt?

You are not a crucial piece of my life
anymore; in fact, you're not even
a passing shadow in it,
as much as I wish we could have been
unstoppable forces, twenty years between
us served as a threat and a barrier and a
thousand other things...

I have to let that dream fully die.

I realize I loved you, even though I
was trapped in darkness,
surrendering to it every hour,

you couldn't pull me through it,
no matter if you felt the same.

For now, I'll continue to dream of
leaving this town, like I've written about
for years yet never had the courage to do,
too afraid the distance would own me,
make me its accomplice in isolation
until I would depress into the earth itself.

This town will not be my burial ground.

I won't let it make me forget;
I also won't let it take me hostage
with the idea that you can find me and
take me into a home we could call our own.

You're only two miles away, but it feels
like there's galaxies between us.
And maybe, that's for the better.
Maybe, our history was meant
to be shared between us once,

and never revisited again.