Patchwork

Sometimes
when insomnia takes my brain,
I find myself staring
off into the bright night sky
and thinking
of you, of course,
and remembering
everything we've shared
and everything we haven't;
of how time seemed to stand still,
to fall into its place in the sands,
and nothing seemed to matter
even as the world fell down around us.
We needed no embroidery,
no fancy, whirlwind romance.
Life was calm and clear,
like the air before a storm,
and for a while, all was peaceful.

Looking back on it now,
I can see what happened,
why we frayed,
pulled apart:
to protect ourselves,
to try to keep safe
what we knew would get broken.
But still we struggled to stay together.
Through moves and changes,
happiness and broken hearts,
we tried.
And inevitably, we fell apart,
at the very seams I worked so hard to mend.

So here is my goodbye,
my tribute to you
who has blanketed my life for so long,
who has kept me safe and warm under your care;
and my sorrow
at how things had to end,
how I couldn't hem us back together this time.

So I'm sorry
that I couldn't fix the broken,
couldn't bring back the light in your eyes.
And I guess this is goodbye.
It seems our patchwork love
has finally given in.