I do not love you.
I love the you that I thought I knew;
Happy, carefree, without the baggage you carry on your back;
The burden that weighs you down;
The burden you refuse to even acknowledge exists.
I can still hear your protests, your excuses, your justifications;
All the myriad reasons you give yourself so that you never need stop & unpack them;
To open them wide and pull out all the pain, the misery, the suffering so that you might let go;
So that your burden might be lightened as you trudge through the years.
I do not love you.
I love the you that you had the potential to be;
A rosebud yet to blossom, to grow, to flourish.
Instead you became a monolith of obsidian, standing your eternal vigil;
Rooted forever in place as the river of time flows ever onwards.
Your jagged spire is still visible over my shoulder;
But over the days, weeks, months, years it grows ever smaller.
The shadow you cast lays heavy upon my shoulders;
But with each passing day, week, month, year, my burden grows ever lighter.
I do not love you.
I love the you that I made for myself;
The Frankenstein's monster that lives in my dreams;
Stitched together from all the little bits & pieces of sunshine that you once shone upon me.
Your laughter, your wit, your passion, your joy still haunt me;
When I see you, hear your, touch you, taste you in the waking hours of morning;
When silence fades and darkness dies, you wander into my life again.
I long for you, in the wee hours of dawn;
Calling after your ghost, a memory of the you I thought I knew;
A mirage given life in those times I've never been, in the places I've never seen.
I do not love you.
I love the you I thought you could be.
I love the you I want you to be.