The Return
 

I will be waiting then at the place we left behind,
waiting for you there.  I have gone, and searched, and tried.
I have failed.  Maybe this is the pure fact of it now -
that I was never meant to leave that place,
that my time there was all I was ever allowed,
and do I now realize how foolish the impulse
to abandon that certainty must seem?
I am sick of searching, waiting, denying.
Enough of lies and patience.
Enough of foolish dreams.

I see you now, striding so far ahead and know I cannot follow.
I can wait - will wait - because I have nowhere left to go and nothing else left to be.

I was always back there, caught up in a time already
abandoned and gone, and I see now that by allowing
myself to believe I could move forward,
I have done nothing but foster my own self-delusion,
prolong my own needless suffering.
I will go back, I will succumb, because it is over now,
those dark days offer cold and peace and the ability to forget,
and I am so, so, so very tired of trying to remember.
Please don't ask me to remember.
Please don't ask me to stay.

Will you mourn me then, look back over my receding footsteps in pain?
All I need is your understanding - for you to know that I do this now without tears in my eyes,
that the knowledge brings with it a freedom from pain.

Admire my liberty.  Rejoice in my retreat,
because my feet cannot keep walking,
and darkness has already swallowed my path.
Someday you too will reach your end.
You will journey back to the beginning,
and on that day, when the darkness grows to swallow you
and all this fervent struggle is forgotten,
remember that I will already be there -
I will be waiting for you then,
waiting patiently for your return.



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