Shout out to Ricardo Gomez Angel for the photo via Unsplash.

Some days
Leaving you feels like
Leaving my self
Even though
Our apartness
Is only momentary
I am moving
Yet I am sedentary
Stuck in my spot
Feet rooted
Scared to make the next move

And
You’re my friend
My lover
My reason
You’re my partner
My joy
There’s no treason
When we’re together

And yet
That
Apartness

It doesn’t seem to affect you
Like it does me

My heart longs for
Comforter cuddles
And
Breakfast in bed
And all the things
That come with adventure
And love
And playing pretend

But
Doing any of that alone
Sounds
Terrible!
Terrible! Terrible!

My anxiety soars as I breathe deeper
Do it alone?
That doesn’t feel right
Doesn’t seem right
So I wonder
Is it codependency?
Have I lost even more of me?
Am I
Leaning too hard on you
Have I
Misplaced
My thoughts towards you
And moved my mindset
Too far away to repair

Or is it…
Healthy?

Healthy
To want you here
To want you near
To experience these dreams
Together
But these dreams
I’m dropping them
Slowly
Into the paper shredder

Because
Going it alone doesn’t feel right
But doing it together
Is a fight
And…
One of us
Always seems
To drag
Our
Feet
And it’s not just
“My Dreams”
Piling up
Under shiny new blades
That turn us to paper dust
It’s your dreams too
And I feel like I’m the fool
To believe
What I believed
So long
Ago

Cause the truth is
I’m still
Stupidly in love with you!

The love only grows deeper
It never runs out
But these crushed hopes
They hurt
They sting
Leaving a string
Of never ending paper cuts
Following me

And so
I wonder
I wonder if you feel the same
But you don’t voice it
Because it hurts
It hurts you too
And are we caught
Not knowing
What
To
Do?

Are we caught
In perpetual motion
Always moving closer
And farther
Nearer
And far far away

Is closeness
A trick
We learned
To keep these thoughts at bay?

I know it’s more than that.
I know it’s more than that.
I know it’s more than that.
I know it’s more than that.

Still
I don’t know
What
To
Do
I feel like
I’m staring at you
And we’re both stinging
And underneath
Underneath that
Never ending paper cut
We are both bruised
Unsure of the next steps
That will please
The proverbial
“You”’s

So we wait
And we dance
Around the ideas
In our minds
And hope that
Someday
We will find
A dream worth sharing
And holding onto

Written 7/10/23 by Bella L.