An End

You appear in my thoughts more than I’d like.

I wonder if you are happy, knowing that you most probably are.

Even if you weren’t, I doubt I would feel better. 

Did you meet Irene?  Maybe she saw your family and friends instead,

If you are living your own West-side story the way my snooping suggests,

Living in the birthplace you swear you told me about, but I know you didn’t.

Has she made you a dad?  My heart stops.  The final nail.  But a bittersweet happiness.

Life has separated us in so many more ways than one.

Do you ever think the same, wonder about me?

Am I a distant shadow from the past, a long-faded memory,

Or one you have locked away to keep from your present?

Did you hope for my safety when my home was ablaze?

Wonder how much I witnessed or how close I came?

Or perhaps watched in horror like anyone else,

With objective compassion, like you had no connection.

You didn’t stop moving the moment I left,

The sadness ignited you rather than froze you in time.

Progression suits you, I would just hold you back,

Stagnating in my own self-pity.  I am still here.

No news to share, no achievements to laud,

Same as it ever was.

You believed in me, at least for a time,

A flash of light in the gloom, until you shone elsewhere.

But maybe you never did.  Infatuated with an image,

An idea, an ideal.  The truth wasn’t as beautiful as she,

The reality more difficult than the fantasy.

In the end you took your bird in the hand by the hand,

Over any potential prize out in the bush.

How shrewd and sensible, a timely escape.  

I still feel the fool, but at least I am my own.

You deserve a happy ending, you worked hard to get it.

I will settle for an end to this.