i remember my first words and last words with all my former loves

the middle is a jumble of declarations, lies, and inane conversations

hardly important, but the first and last stay burned into my mind like beacon fires on the shore of a rocky outcropping

they don’t lead to safe harbor though

i can see the smiles, the tears, the angry stares, the stolen glances across the room

i can feel the heartache but not the soaring fresh love

i can remember the feeling of betrayal, but the not the racing of stolen touches

but those first words, the way my heart stopped at that smile that made time cease, made everything else fade away until that glorious look made every bad moment before it worth while

and those last words, the way my heart stopped as they permeated my soul, made everything brittle and heating, made every good thing in this world die a little at the passing of something that was supposed to be forever

all those incidental moments faded into a gray haze

all those fleeting moments of fancy and shared jokes, special moments reduced to nothing

i miss you for all those stupid things we shared

for all those moments of quiet

all of those wasted times spent just basking in you

i don’t know if it i could do it all over again without breaking, knowing how it would end

knowing that that one i made my everything would discard me like a broken toy

that nearly a year later it would still be me alone trying to pick up the pieces

could i have saved it if i did things differently or would that have sped up the process

was it inevitable that a love like that would flare out, or could we have done something to stoke the flames

figured out how to not take each other for granted and relish in the bonds we grew

i know it is dangerous to fall into the rabbithole of what if when the reality of what was meant so much but amounted to so little

but these quiet times of sorrow do no good

i am sorry

too little too late