That I can clearly see myself stood proud,
certain (yet unknowing) at eight years old,
looking down each morning, from my hilltop,
school-bound, waiting for a friend, before me
my birthplace, my assured domain, my views
forming into a self-deceiving course,
near daily wondering about my world
and the others in it: was it a lie, an illusion,
a joke, and must you try to be happy,
or was it something that befell you like a trip
in the playground, a snowball in the face
or to be achieved with underlined praise?

But beyond what the eye could see somewhere
out there was you. Forming your own views
unknowing that one day you would bump into me.
Yet how could I know that at this same time
you, too, lived, wishing love upon yourself,
waiting to put those hopes on someone unformed
like me, whilst, you revealed, rehearsed attachments
playing Mummies, kissing only one boy in the playground.
Years later, I made this girl cry without
pulling hair or kicking legs and running
away. The girl who tried too hard, later deserving
gold stars aplenty for deftly employing

her curly cs and kicking ks in the right
order and outburst for pleading and pathetic
love letters that exasperated us both.
Fond, but not fond enough, not leaving not
staying: you got messed up with me.
Circumstance and friends paired us together,
and once they split we couldn’t leave ourselves alone:
late night door bells, bewitched by those take-me-in
mascaraed eyes, before the dawn light left
something beyond the trace of perfumed pillows.
Two half-drawn, would-be lovers disproving fate.
Did we waste each other’s time, or did you learn

​

something that you needn’t learn again?
I was waiting for life to happen.
I didn’t know what it was but I knew
it was beyond you. I was drawn to you
but didn’t want locking in. I thought giving
meant losing. But whilst compromised together
I could’ve made something worth moving on from.
Newly left home. Damp flat. Blind prospects. Scared.
You caught me trying to get my leg over
my limitations, bluffing boyish pluck.
But you saw something in me that I didn’t
know I had and I regret not giving you more of.

This emotional dividend remains
unclaimed. It takes time. It takes time to realise
what we are, and what we’re not. I was afraid
of making mistakes on the way when now,
I know, as you did then, that is the way.
Our short toe-trodden waltz together did,
years later, have the desired effect - not,
with you or for you - and not how you meant.
But accepting our loss as we finally moved on
from each other, I still hold what I didn’t
know we had, and what seemed meaningless from
the beginning, was meaningful to the end.