Writing prompts can tickle memories and draw out thoughts I hadn't had in years.
Was he the one who got away
or was he never there?
Depends on the moment in time
when that question is asked.
For a while,
in my mind at least,
he was the one.
But he made it clear
that I wasn't
Which, I suppose was also a way of saying
he wasn't the one.
Friends,
we were
and remain
Friends.
A complicated relationship
for me,
not so much,
for him.
Love, closeness, emotional attachment
Commonalities, differences.
I left.
He left.
Now we're each
writing a new chapter
His is long, ongoing
I've written several,
they are shorter.
While I've been writing new plot points
He's on the chapter he started when he left.
It might be a long one
It might be his last one
As for me,
There will be several more chapters I hope.
Was he "the one" who got away
or was he never there?
Time has erased the expectations
softened the feelings.
But the question randomly surfaces
when I hear a song,
read a sentence in a book
or a line in a poem
see someone who reminds me
Of him.
It's a moot point now.
As I write another page
I'm tempted to go back several chapters,
revisit the characters and plot.
unearth memories.
What was real,
What could have been.
Images and feelings
have blurred over time.
love and its many contradictions.
Was it one-way love?
Was it non-romantic love?
Was it love at all?
Does it matter now?
As he used to say,
It is what it is.
And now I say
It was what it was.