Why Does Every Goodbye Feel Like Forever?

Why does every goodbye feel like forever?

Always wondering if I’ll ever see you again.

Not just you.. but her, him, them.

For too long and far too often,

There’s goodbye and then no future hello.

I never know…

If I’ll see those I love ever return.

.

It’s as if my soul has been set to slowly burn.

Grasping ahold of all the words, once so lovingly spoken.

Now I’m left here so hopelessly broken.

.

When did my heart become their favorite tether?

They yank me around like a kite buoyed on the wind,

Left to wonder

Will I be plucked from the updraft?

I turn, and they’ll spin.

No way to stop them again.

.

My resolve has never worn thin,

It’s a solution I seek.

A much needed win.

Yet they grasp defiantly, trying to deflect their every vile sin.

.

I flutter there upon their rope.

I’m floundering. Flailing.

Sputtering. Failing.

My breaths come in uneven spurts.

Every instance of my existence just simply hurts.

.

The misery suffocates

While the chaos derails.

I’ve lost all ability to focus on the minute details.

Spiraling downward.

Their behavior completely untoward.

.

How do I stop them?

Where is our reprieve?

It’s anyone’s guess just what’s up their sleeve.

.

They can never know

How far I’ve gone.

How they’ve broken me so.

In their eyes, I must remain strong.

They can’t ever know how close I’ve come to the end.

.

So I’ll plaster on another smile and politely pretend,

Give no indication that I’ve shattered beneath the weight of it all.

I’ll give no quarter, nor divulge my stumble and fall.

~

Bolstering, and reinforcing, it’s never enough.

I’m always alone.

Why is this life so incredibly tough?

When you’ve lost it all

There’s no way up.

Someone will always be there to kick over your proverbial cup

Long before it ever reaches its fill.

.

I’ve been pushing this damn boulder

Endlessly uphill.

My sight goes rather hazy

As tears blur my vision.

If only I could pen my life’s ultimate revision

You’d be here in my arms.

Never torn apart,

Not shattered and torn.

.

You were the center of my universe

Now it’s like I’m trapped within a hearse

Awake, silently screaming, there’s no escape.

Their thrill in our suffering, it’s all quite perverse.

.

The obstacles they invent

And throw in our paths?

I can only imagine that it will get worse.

.

You should be sleeping soundly in your bed

There’d be no gaping hole in my heart,

No confusion and torment within my head.

If I could go back to my own beginning and right it all from the start

I would do it in a blink.

Right every wrong.

.

I’d bring you back to where you belong.

Undo all this devastation,

We’d never be apart.

If only I could go back to the very start.

. . .

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This poem was originally published on Medium: