I Used To Be You

Why don’t you ever look up? Staring down into the pool
Your eyes drawn into the water
It reflects oh so unclearly
You were
Always worried about what you’d become
And things you’d never be
What you are is me, those things, I never wanted you to become
I’m looking over the shoulder
Of my memories, you can’t reach me
And when the cold strands of my mind reach out for you
They strangle the good out of you with their jelly-fish sting
I start with the pain of it
The pain of you, and it’ll never be finished
My sadness flows out of your tears, my confusion
Depends on your various certainties. Unfulfilled
Sometimes we run blind, almost touching
Sediment layers our minds in our quarry
I mine you for memories – I tear up your guts
Searching for what I took from you
Its place
And for what you left behind
I put my arm around you, neither of us feel it
And I hate you for things you didn’t do
The loss of what you did sells my thoughts down the river
It’s a river to drown in
And my body, new – Of the ocean, of scale and fin
Betrays you and swims from the flow of your tears
Up, away, without. I remain, and you remain
In me, in the shadow of my mind.