I would recognise your walk anywhere.
Sometimes passers by remind me of you.
And I still check bus windows as they drive by, 
just in case you are there in the back seat.

Time has moved on,
but you still hide in the corners of my mind,
like a tattoo in a place I can’t see.

You set me free to find someone who could give me the things you didn’t want to.
The things I wanted from you.
I have them now, and I feel how you should have made me feel.
I resent that you were right.
I resent that you knew how I should have been treated and couldn’t.
Even in my happiness, happiness that I wouldn’t change, I am bitter for the time and love wasted.
Even now it saddens me, and I still don’t understand.
I don’t understand why it wasn’t, it can’t and won’t ever again, be you.

I measure the time by how long my nails have grown, not by days or by weeks or by hours.
I measure the time by cigarettes burnt, sleepless nights and hot salty tears.
I measure the time by my clothes hanging looser, and how the dust settles on my room.
I measure the time by the change of my face, the spread of my eyebrows beyond their usual shape.

I measure the time by the pile of laundry, how many dishes are stacked, not by days or by nights.
I measure the time by how many bruises I have, the new marks on my skin, the scratches and scars.
I measure the time by the smell of my sheets, and the knots in my hair.
I measure the time by the collection of abandoned pills by my bed.

I measure the time by how the oranges rot, and how the milk has curdled, not by the days on the calender.
I measure the time by the rain and the sun and how I sleep through it all.
I measure the time by the phases of hunger, the waves of sickness, the empty weight of pain.
I measure the time by how dull the ache is, or by how crippling the thoughts.

I measure the time by how I remember your voice, or the way your skin felt, not by how long since I saw you last.
I measure the time by how far the cracks spread, how I crumble with memories, the lack of air in my lungs.
I measure the time by breaking, and bending, and caving and hiding.
I measure the time by withdrawal, the withdrawal from you.

If you could go back would you change anything?
Would you still change it if it meant we would never meet?

Do you see me as something better that came along,
or something that just took the pain away for a little while?

I fear that when you think of me you associate me with what could have been, not what is or what might be.

There are so many things about you that make me painfully happy.
I wonder if there are things that I do that make you feel this way…

For a start, your eyes. How they shine when you look at me, how they are so dark yet so bright at the same time.
Your eyelashes, I think they are my favourite thing. How can someone’s eyelashes be the most beautiful thing I see on a daily basis?
Your skin. Your hands, and how you play with my fingertips when we sit together.
Your smile. It changes your whole face, transforms you into something that can build and break my heart all at once every time I see it.
Your hair. How you smell when you rest your head on my shoulder.
The way you call me baby girl, or Bubsy Malone, or the apple of your eye.
Things that are just ours.
It makes me happy watching your skinny legs rush around in the morning when you get ready for work.
When you sing to yourself, when you disappear off into your imaginary land for a while.
The way you open up to me after a drink or 5, and tell me things that make me feel as if I am floating.
The way you kiss me.
The way just being close to you calms me, and makes me feel at home.
You are my home, wherever we might be, if you are there it’s home.

I guess what I am asking is if this is real.
I want to know if we are on the same page, or reading different books.

I wish I knew without asking.
An answer is never as honest, nor reassuring, as an unprovoked revelation.