Many Faces of Love

[takhen]

Time for another poem in the 'Faces of Love' series.  You can find the others in this series as well as the "Long Search' and 'Zodiac' series in my Memories.

Epitaph

Two years gone by.
Two years of gradual
growing away.
And now I've reached a place
where the little pieces of you,
the ones you left behind, don't
claw at me like cornered cats
when I encounter them in the
attic of my mind.

Acceptance is the key, we
said, and I've accepted as fact
you won't be coming back;
that your sports coat in my
closet is not a guarantee of
your return.  That your promise
had no roots in reality; that,
perhaps, you even lied; and that
even when you said you'd never
hurt me, you knew you would
because you couldn't help
yourself.

I accept this because I have
no choice and because I must
live, I must survive, because I
can't help myself.

But will I ever see brown eyes
without remembering yours
brimming with what I took for
love every time you looked at
me?  And will I ever see a sunset
one over the mountains without
remembering the one we saw?

I didn't want to give up -
Gods know, I didn't want to -
But I can't keep up the dreams alone,
I can't live in your fantasy.