We grew up together
though we were miles apart.
But even with that separation
we were in each other’s heart.

Those tender teenage years
that included so many questions.
We were only sixteen after all,
and not given to know discretion.

Our lives were never perfect;
We both had our own faults.
Still, we saw something in each other we needed.
We wanted to learn the steps needed for this delicate waltz.

We were nineteen now.
We’d met a few times, travelling back and forth.
We knew we had to, over the years.
I came to the South, and you came to the North.

Romance was tentative,
we were so young and without experience.
Those first cautious attempts between us
might as well be called precarious.

Later, we decided to grow together.
I left my work, college, family and friends.
I thought I was doing the logical thing;
making a sacrifice for the love that would never end.

The years have never been easy,
that much I know.
At once, I wanted to give you the world.
Now I realize that’s so difficult to show.

We got married after so many years together.
I guess we were way past due.
It was just a small affair;
My family, yours, me and you.

Now it seems, a few years later
that we’re growing apart.
We tend to argue all the time;
We don’t care if we damage each other’s hearts.

You want me to be obedient, to listen,
To be subservient to you.
Based on my upbringing, and all these years of knowing me
Is that really something you think I can do?

We relish in hurting each other,
So many exchanges between us laced with venom, akin to toxic waste.
This deep crevasse between us is ever growing;
Everything between us seems debased.

We came to be together,
though we were miles apart.
It seemed as though we would make it;
now we’re worse off than we were at the start.

We’re getting to be even older now;
This huge divide between us seems to know no end.
I used to like belonging to you,
and now it seems like I can’t even call you friend.

I told you recently that my heart
is as similar as one can get to a cavernous black hole.
The consistent damage that’s been done
only seems to match my pathetic dead soul.

I often wonder and contemplate what life would have been like,
had I met someone else so long ago.
To give my love to that someone else, that wants me as I am;
I fear that it’s a sensation that I’ll never know.

I lay down at night, alone with my dreams.
Dreams of a person that loves me, who knows me so deep;
Who knows all of my fears and insecurities
and wants to be held by me as we go to sleep.

I can never know what path life is going to take;
as of right now, everything in life seems futile.
All I can do is have faith that things may work out in the end;
whatever that might end up to be, I won’t need any approval.