Undone | A Poem

What would I do,

If I could do it all differently?

Would I still hold your hand while we walk by the lakeside at 2 a.m?

Would I have still kissed you where we stood under the streetlights

Huddled beneath the cold winter rain?

Would I replay it all the same?

Like someone humming notes of a song that has been stuck in their head for too long.

A song that I can’t quite shake

Because I somehow never seem able to finish it whenever it comes on.

I never wrote you poetry.

Not once did I leave little pieces of my heart Hidden in glass jars for you to discover on some rainy afternoon in January.

Instead, I crafted what I imagined were artistic complexities

Vain constructs built upon foundations laid in quicksand,

Cities awaiting their sudden catastrophic demise.

I penned an Edwardian tale

To be read through a thin veil of willful ignorance.

You garnish your memories with roses

while I observe shards of glass

Mixed in with the plated memories you hold

They will leave our throats bloody as we swallow them whole.

And while I recognize the sweet metallic taste of blood on my tongue,

You speak of the sweetness of the sugar in the dish you devour.

So then,

What would I do differently?

Would I still stay up all night talking with you?

Would we lay on our backs on top of your twin bed,

There in your second story apartment,

Whispering about our dreams and future plans which definitely didn't all come to pass

All while knowing full well I have to be at work the next day?

Yes I know that I would.

Then, I would also leave in the same way that I did before.

Looking into your hazel eyes boring into my soul

Leaning quietly against the door frame

watching a smile pull at the corner of your lips

And feel your body against mine,

Your hands on my chest

As our lips meet again.

I would let you quietly push me out into the hall and watch your door close.

I would walk away in self reflective silence.

Smiling because of the memories I hold.

But crying because I can see everything I lost,

Everything I did wrong,

Everything I gave up.

I don’t want to be a man of regrets,

But I regret what I saw us become to one another.

I regret so much,

And I am sorry for all of it.

But what I will never regret

Is that night.

That one beautiful night among what was the darkest of storms.

Your laughter made my heart feel annoyingly light

Your smile was a welcomed embrace.

And sometimes I wish that I could leave that memory as is.

Beautiful and undisturbed.

A question mark unbothered by future memories.

Just a footnote on a single page of an old diary.

A quiet thought of lips untouched beneath a cold winter rain.