You

All I can see is the storm. All I can feel is my heart breaking. The rain obscures my vision. The wind causes leaves and debris to blow into my face. I feel you slipping through my fingers. 

Once again, a person I value is getting distant from me. Another woman being removed from me. Only this time it is happening slowly. Like a bandage being torn from a not quite healed wound. I sense that neither of us want it to happen. Or am I the only one to feel this? 

Once again, am i playing the fool? 

No time, you say. Too much going on. You can't do it all. But all I hear you saying is that we can no longer be "us". 

I have to take a back seat. Or get out of the car altogether. You know I have needs and you say you can't meet them. 

I feel like a little boy once again. Watching my dad drive away early in the morning. Knew I wouldn't see him again for days. And when I did see him again, he wouldn't want to be with me nearly as much as I wanted to be with him. 

Ah, this feels like the curse. Wanting the other person more than they want me. Being too much, too needy, too much of damn near everything. But how can I be anything other than who I am?

As the relationship seems to die, the life of it flashes before my eyes like some kind of reel to reel black and white movie. 

I wish you'd stay. i don't want to let go. I want to hear your laugh. I want to know that that laugh was you reacting to something I did or said. I want to fill your life and heart with joy, like a scented candle fills a dark room with light and fragrance. 

You were my girl. You think I am handsome. 

We found each other limping along. Trying to make sense of the wrecks our lives had become. We took each other into each others hearts. We bandaged each others wounds. We taught each other how to smile again. 

you helped me to regain some of my stature. My confidence. Made me feel like a man again, in so many ways. 

Dear girl, how I want to continue to see that smile directed at me. I want to hold you in my arms and never let you go. 

Damn the obstacles! The differences. The reasons not to be together. 

But I am not enough. Other things are more important. I see this. There is a logic to it. I see it! I really do. 

But it still hurts like hell. 

To know that I am not worth getting ready for. That I am causing more stress than smiles. That you have all the damn emotional equity. 

That 

I 

want 

this 

more 

than

you.

So, I retreat. I can't make you love me. I can't make you think I am worth it. That we are worth it. 

You will be fine. I will be fine. 

It's probably better this way, right?

We will pretend it isn't ending for awhile. Try and see each other when you will allow it. When it fits into your schedule. 

After some time we will stop pretending and allow the ashes that are left of us to fall to the ground and get blown away. 

In time, we will find anothers arms to be in. We will be a little more careful this time. Make sure we aren't so needy this time. Find a better fit. And the time where we were us will have faded into memory. The rebound relationship. But could it have it been so much more?

But life intrudes. 

Reality intervenes. 

Unhappy children. 

Mortgages.

Bills.

Jobs. 

Stress. 

Killing us as we really started to breathe. 

Goodbye dear one.