looking back

[caged]

whatever else you may have heard
one thing was said that will always be true
i was more myself with you than at any other time in my life
and although the honesty of it back then was clear
recent circumstances have magnified its meaning

to have lived inside that space of time
when you expected nothing of me
except for a raw existence of emotion and experience
was exquisite in its simplicity
marred however slightly with the awareness that you can do that for me
and the nagging belief
that much of my happiness relied upon the not-knowing of such things

because the knowledge has melted into an inescapable force
a pull towards you that cannot be ignored
and as such is unacceptable
all of this compounded by the fact that there is no logical explanation
not for the changes
or the reasons why
not for the fact that a look from you can still shatter me
if for no other reason than to remind me that it was real